Titans: The White Revenant
by CDrake
Summary: While stopping an attempted heist of WayneTech property, the Titans are outpaced by a new hero who confronts them with an offer too good to refuse. Can he find his place among the Titans, or will his secrets place him at the top of their most wanted? Who says dead men tell no tales?
1. A New Face

Chaos? Explosions? Masked men with guns?

 _Just another day in Jump City._

Richard John Grayson, AKA Robin, the original Boy Wonder, smirked ruefully as he leapt behind an overturned dumpster for cover. The rumble of a stampede and the rapid pop of automatic gunfire reached his ears as he pointedly ignored their sources and focused on his own problems with practiced ease. A small metallic disc was drawn from a pouch in his belt, bounced in his palm for a few moments as he counted the rounds hitting his dumpster, his smirk returning once he heard the telltale click of an empty chamber.

His left hand reached up and vaulted him over the dumpster as his right threw the disc in a fluid movement. It landed and dug into the pavement next to two masked thugs, beeping for a moment before exploding in their faces with massive concussive force. Flying and yelling, they slammed back-first into nearby cars, causing considerable dents and cracking their side windows. He didn't stop for a second, rolling under incoming gunfire and rising to crack a few ribs with a jabbing elbow to the shooter's midsection. His knuckle-plated gloves cracked against the skull of the man to finish him off, and a steel-toed boot diverted the barrel of another rifle just as it opened fire.

A click from behind warned him of another shooter, but this one had him dead to rights. He could only hope his armor would hold up long enough to get cover. As it turned out, he didn't need to, since two green bolts exploded at the attacker's feet, knocking him off-balance a moment before an orange and violet blur tackled him through a nearby brick wall. Smirking to himself, Robin brought his fist into the nose of the closer shooter and finished him with a roundhouse to the temple. Glancing around, he was greeted only with unconscious bodies. Finally allowing himself a breather, the Titans' leader tapped his earpiece and turned his eyes to the sky.

"Titans, how are we doing?"

Cyborg's comlink clicked on first. "Not too shabby, if I say so myself—" a loud grunt, "—though I could use a pinch of backup with the—" a crash was heard both over the link and in the distance, "—never mind. Thanks, Rae."

A noncommittal grunt sounded over the radio.

"Does anyone have eyes on the power node?" Robin asked.

"That's a big negative here," Cyborg responded.

"Same," Beast Boy groaned, sounding like he'd either just run a mile or had a gang beating on him from sixteen directions. Either one sounded possible at the moment.

"Star?" Robin asked.

No response.

"Starfire, come in," he ordered, a slight, nearly undetectable tinge of nerves in his voice.

A few more seconds passed before Robin pressed a control on his left gauntlet, pulling up a holographic map of the area and his team's corresponding transponders. Five glowing red dots lit up around a roughly three-block area, each with individual symbols captioning them. Raven had her namesake, Beast Boy an ornate eagle grasping a sword, and Cyborg his trademark dotted C. Robin's, of course, was a sharp-tipped R, and Starfire had a round green jewel indicative of the one she wore on her uniform's chest. At present, that jewel was sitting stationary some two blocks from Robin's current position.

An uncomfortable chill was sent up Robin's spine. Star never sat still if she could help it, especially not in a fight. Sending another quick glance at the map, Robin turned his comlink back on.

"Beast Boy, head north to Star's position. Find out what's going on."

The urgent note to his tone had BB adopting the same tone. "I'm on it, boss."

Robin pressed a control on his belt, and the rev of a tricked-out motorcycle reached his ears, the older teen not bothering to look as he leapt into the air, legs tucked against his chest to land on the newly arrived R-cycle in a perfect stance. The engine roared as he took off toward Star and Beast Boy, who had also fallen disturbingly silent after being sent to the hot zone. Gritting his teeth, Robin hit a control on his bike's dashboard after getting within a block of their transponders, the cycle's seat launching him thirty feet into the air and above the line of buildings obscuring his view.

Firing his grapnel at an overhead radio tower, he swung toward the far side of the building and seamlessly disconnected with a double backflip. A charge from his gloves sent his cape expanding into a rigid glider as his masked eyes narrowed at the smoke-filled street below. A rapid double-blink switched his lenses to infrared, and several large shapes filled his vision a moment before he felt a massive tug at his waist. Blinking twice again to retract the lenses, Robin looked down to see his belt being pulled down and forward, the tug only increasing the closer he got to street level. Another infrared scan revealed the why.

A massive heat spike was coming from the base of a building on the opposite side of the street, a large electromagnet, he hypothesized—quite correctly. Once he got far enough through the smoke, Robin could clearly see the two communicators and attached transponders glued to the device. Feeling himself about to be yanked there as well, he quickly reached down and unclipped his utility belt, cursing himself when he felt his legs being pulled on as well.

 _Knew I should've asked Lucius for ceramic plating instead of steel toes._

Angling his body forward, Robin planted his feet against the wall of the building and reached down to uncouple his boots as well, launching out of them in a backflip and using his cape to glide toward the rest of the heat signatures. A green explosion erupted in front of him, the Titans' leader releasing a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding as he saw Starfire's familiar orange-violet streak pass him by. Unfortunately, the wind gust from the movement threw his flight pattern off completely and sent him careening out of control. An almost panicked yell came from his throat until he felt strong, feminine fingers wrap around his forearm.

He looked up into Star's glowing green eyes and felt his heart skip a beat as he was momentarily distracted by her teasing smile.

 _Focus, Dick! Bruce would be_ so _disappointed if he could see you now._

Shaking his head slightly, the Boy Wonder returned her smile and nodded once as she angled her flight pattern toward the battle, where the howl of a cheetah could be heard below. Star let him go just as the hulking metal figure of some kind of powered battle suit came into view, Robin planting spandex-clad feet on its upper hull with a grunt. Without the padding his boots provided, having to land on sheer metal was a bit of a pain. All the same, he rolled onto its shoulder and leapt off, springing off the side of a building and avoiding its attempts to pin him down with several near misses.

Robin smirked when he saw how easily the pilot was distracted, grinning fully when a massive green rhino barreled into the armored suit from behind, its horn finding a gap in its armor and digging into the delicate circuitry inside. Robin landed on ground level in a roll, taking a moment to recover his footing and breath as he looked up and coughed hard.

"Star," he called, "see if you can't clear out this smoke!"

Her only answer was the whirring of fast-moving wind, caused by the Tamaranean's spiral flight pattern. About ten seconds later, and the air was clear enough to see down the block. Robin's eyes widened when he saw another armored suit digging into a large metal container and yanking something out.

 _Oh no._

"Star, Beast Boy—stop that thing!"

They gave him slightly confused looks before both taking off into flight, a dozen green starbolts streaking toward the armored figure. It spotted them and her a split-second later, a jump-jet on its back rocketing it out of immediate danger as it took to the sky. Gritting his teeth, Robin ran toward the nearby electromagnet and hit the release on one of his belt pockets. An electric baton fell into his hand—made of high-density carbon polymers, thank goodness—and was jabbed into an exposed circuit of the magnet, disrupting its power supply and freeing both his teammates' communicators and his utility belt and boots.

Donning the latter, he sprinted toward the sounds of battle, his peripheral vision catching Raven and Cyborg finally joining them from the rear. The roar of twin jet engines reached him from in front, the teen rounding a corner only to gape when the armored thug dropped his pilfered machine aboard a modified F-35, a magnetic storage strip on its underside holding it in place. The suit gave the pilot a thumbs-up before turning to face the Titans and revealing a half-dozen concealed weapons of unknown make.

When they warmed red, Robin's eyes widened and he shouted at the rest of the team.

"Scatter!"

The Titans obeyed, some taking to the sky, others just running for cover as the suit's two arm-cannons fired red beams in their general directions. The beams, as Robin had assumed, disintegrated anything in their path with little difficulty, prompting Cyborg to unleash a full blast from his sonic cannon in an attempt to neutralize their sources. The pilot, however, was a pro. Despite the size of his machine, he expertly dodged Cyborg's shots and anything else to be thrown his way, countering with return fire comprised of rockets, bullets, and more disintegrating beams.

Meanwhile, the F-35 was getting away over the bay with the device they had stolen—something Robin was _not_ keen on letting them have, especially considering what he suspected was the fuel for that suit. To that end…

"Raven, stop that fighter!"

"On it," she replied in her usual monotone, taking to the skies and juking around a disintegrator beam sent her way.

Robin managed to land a hit on its firing arm with an explosive disk, sending its next two shots wide and allowing Raven time to escape. "The rest of you, concentrate on disabling its weapons, but don't damage it too badly. We do _not_ want this thing to go critical."

"Rob," Cy started, "tell me that thing isn't shooting what I think it is."

Robin shot him a look as he leapt behind new cover. "You remember Chang's cannon. Does that tech look any different?"

Cyborg just shot him a frown and shook his head. "When will these morons ever learn?"

Another half-minute into the battle, and Robin's comlink fired up.

"Bit of an issue," Raven said with a miffed note to her voice even as the sound of thunder reached the shoreline.

"Talk to me," Robin replied.

"The jet just went supersonic, and I can't match it for speed thanks to a drone it sent to slow me down."

Robin scowled into his communicator. "Raven, do whatever you have to. That plane _cannot_ get away!"

Immediately after he finished saying this, a massive gust of wind from behind sent his cape billowing up into his features, temporarily blinding him. Waving it off with a small growl, he looked behind, then forward to the waterfront. What he saw, he almost couldn't believe. Blinking once, then twice to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, Robin stared at the disturbed water rolling away from a narrow path that led toward the escaping jet—and the silver lightning trail at its head.

…

Raven stamped down on the anger threatening to rise within her as she narrowly dodged another burst of automatic fire from the drone currently keeping her occupied. Despite all telekinetic attempts to latch onto and crush it, the machine was somehow evading her grasp and making life _very_ difficult. Meanwhile, her true mission was getting smaller and smaller in the distance.

 _Enough of this,_ she decided.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

An arc of dark energy engulfed the space where she predicted the drone would fly next, and it vanished from existence as she teleported it into the bay, short-circuiting its insides. Turning toward the escaping fighter, she put a burst of power into her flight and took off, accelerating at a massive speed, but still not enough to close the gap, given that it was already a great deal faster than her. Gritting her teeth, she primed herself to attempt a teleport when a loud rush of displaced water reached her from below. Violet eyes glancing down, she stared agape at the white streak that zipped past her in a blur, trailing silver lightning all the way on its path to the jet.

 _Not flying…running. But that's not Kid Flash._

Her eyes narrowed as she put on more speed, managing to concentrate enough to teleport a few miles forward. Evidently, she overestimated the distance, because when she came out of the portal, the jet was nowhere in sight. Turning about with a twinge of anxiety, her eyes widened when the jet streaked toward her at a massive speed, a panel on its bottom opening to unsheathe a minigun. High-velocity rounds streaked toward her with pinpoint accuracy, only a rapidly formed barrier of magical energy saving her from being shredded—just barely.

She felt exhaustion creep up into her bones as her body started to give out under the strain of stopping over three thousand rounds a minute for ten full seconds. The jet turned at the last second, the backwash of its engines buffeting her about as it streaked past, the girl following with some difficulty. The rush of water followed a moment later, and after pressing a hand to her temple to relieve her sudden headache, Raven looked toward it to see something she would wonder at for some time to come. The silver-and-white blur had actually managed to get a _considerable_ lead on the jet, and was streaking back and forth across the water.

Before she knew it, a large, twelve-foot wave had formed on the surface of the bay. The reason for this was discovered a moment later when the blur zipped around to its front and ran straight up it, leaping off the crest of the wave into a two hundred foot jump—right onto the front of the jet. The half-demon gaped as the form of a white-and-gray clad man was seen standing atop the fighter, a mocking voice just barely reaching her over the wind as he pressed his right hand to the glass of the canopy.

"Please stow all tray tables in the upright position and _un_ fasten your seatbelt."

His pressed appendage vibrated at a massive speed, and the glass shattered a moment later as he reached into the now-open cockpit and clicked the belt loose, then slammed the pilot's helmet into the dashboard and pushed the yoke of the jet down. The throttle was pulled back, and the jet decelerated as it careened toward the surface of the water, Raven rushing to get to it. As it turned out, her assistance was unneeded, as with pinpoint precision, the speedster slung the pilot over his shoulder and waited until the last possible second to run.

The moment the nose of the fighter tapped the water, he broke off in a breakneck sprint toward the back of the plane, leaping off its tailfin just as it began to submerge and landing on the water's surface in a running start. Raven brought herself to an abrupt stop as he ran past her, then looped back toward the flipping jet and snatched the device off its mounting. His lightning trail then swept back toward the city, Raven trying to follow but dramatically outpaced given both his superior starting speed and her own exhaustion. A few minutes later, she finally reached the coastline, where the rest of the Titans stared blankly at the unconscious pilot and the cylindrical machine aboard his vehicle.

A paper was taped to the latter's metal surface with the words, "You're welcome," scrawled in rushed, almost unintelligible handwriting. The Titans each exchanged confused glances, Robin eventually speaking up.

"Raven, you were the closest of all of us. What did you see?"

She sent a look at the cylinder, then turned back to Robin. "Just a blur. A white-silver blur. Got a closer look when he boarded the jet."

Beast Boy's eyebrows shut upward. "How'd he pull _that_ off? That thing wasn't exactly close to the water."

"He took a running jump off a wave he created by running back and forth. And then he crashed it."

"Any defining features?" Robin continued.

"White suit, gray highlights. Definitely male, but he wore a mask. I didn't see much of what _was_ visible."

Robin's lips pursed hard, his girlfriend laying a hand on his shoulder before turning to the rest of the team.

"Does his assistance not make him a friend?" the alien asked.

"The fact that he didn't steal the tech for himself is a plus," Robin replied, "but we still don't know his motivations." He looked up at them. "For now, we get these thugs to jail and get back to the tower. I need to find out if anyone's seen this white blur before."

"But first," Cy interrupted as he brought a pry-bar transformed fist into the downed armor suit, "we need to get these things stowed away."

"No kidding," Beast Boy agreed as he transformed into a wolf spider and climbed into the chassis. He emerged with a small cylinder of glowing red liquid a few moments later, transforming back into his human form and carefully handing the container to Cyborg. "I still remember having to fix the tower after Chang lit it up last time."

First responders and police arrived on the scene and began taking the unconscious thugs into custody while the Titans assisted with the heavy lifting. Meanwhile, their resident half-demon kept thinking and glanced at one of the armors.

"Speaking of Chang," Raven piped up after a while, "do we think he's behind this?"

"Wouldn't put it past him," Robin said with a frown as he crouched over the defunct armor, "but last time I checked, he was behind bars at Belle Reve. Could be a proxy." He rose to his feet and turned back to the team. "We'll know more when we get back home."

She gave him a short nod, then returned to work. After most of the clean-up was done and Beast Boy started getting antsy, the Titans gathered some distance away from the police.

"Right then," Cyborg said, swiping his palms across each other. "Rae, do you mind?"

The pale girl sighed, but nodded and called on her powers. A few moments later, they exited her dark energy and stepped into the entrance atrium of the tower. Since the Tokyo incident, several villains had gotten the bright idea that it would be a good idea to attack Titans Tower directly. As a result, between the damage and exhaustion incurred by each assault, several changes had been made to the tower's architecture and security systems. The entrance was enlarged with more open space, making the bottom half of the T more of an upward-sloping pyramid. The reason for this was twofold—first, to allow for more guest space, especially since the Titans' overall ranks had swelled considerably; and second, to build in more security turrets and other defense systems without sacrificing free space.

The team marched toward one of the now-three elevators as one exhausted unit, Raven pulling back her hood and heaving a large sigh. When the doors opened, she was the first one off, mind filling with thoughts of herbal tea and a long nap. Stopping nearly a thousand rounds of high-caliber ammunition did that to you, apparently. She reached into the familiar tea cupboard almost absently, ignoring Beast Boy and Cyborg as they scrambled for the fridge and telekinetically setting a pot of water to boil. She slumped into a chair half-asleep after setting the tea to steep, pressing her fingers against her temples in a vain attempt to stifle her growing headache as the shouts of the half-robot and green teen sent a jackhammer rocketing against her skull.

Two hard whacks smacked against the backs of both their heads, and Raven was about to thank Starfire or Robin when she looked up to see neither of them standing behind the feuding teens. In fact, no one was standing behind them. The sound of pouring liquid came from her left, and she turned in tandem with the other two in the room—Star and Robin nowhere to be found—to see a white and gray-clad figure standing next to the teapot with two cups gripped in his gloved hands and a small smirk on his face. He sipped from the cup in his right hand and cringed slightly before nodding in approval.

"Not bad," he said quietly, voice a gentle baritone-bordering-tenor. His smile grew as he laid the second, untouched cup next to a gaping Raven, along with sugar, lemons, and cream a moment later. "Don't know how you take it, so…" He retreated to the counter once more, looking almost sheepish as he sipped his tea.

Cyborg and Beast Boy were just staring at him, the former the first to snap to, probably because his internal, computerized alarms were blaring full-volume. His right arm transformed into a sonic cannon and pointed at the figure.

"You wanna explain exactly what you're doin' here?"

" _And_ how you got in?" Beast Boy added, gloved hands bared at his sides.

He outright grinned and set the cup down on the counter as he zipped over to a nearby wall, hand pressed against it. "When I vibrate my molecules at the natural frequency of air," his hand did this as Robin and Starfire entered from another hallway, "I create an energy field that allows me to pass through solid objects." His arm did this as well, phasing through to allow the wall to engulf his entire hand, then pulling out and becoming solid again. He returned to sipping his tea a moment later.

Contrary to Cyborg and Beast Boy, Robin didn't go for his weapons or take a ready stance. Starfire just stared at him quizzically, head cocked slightly in curiosity. Raven was staring blankly, as if trapped in her own body. The intruder took a long swig of the tea as he looked at the Titans nervously—too fast, as Raven noted—and was rewarded with a fit of coughs and sputtering, his closed fist hammering on his chest until his breathing stabilized and he grinned.

Robin's masked eyes narrowed. "We appreciate your help back at the waterfront, but breaking into our home is another matter entirely." His arms crossed. "So let's start with who you are and why you're here."

His grin faded to a flat line as he looked toward the Titans' leader. "I'm the White Revenant."

"The who-what?" Beast Boy asked eloquently.

"Revenant," he answered.

"What's a reb—rev—"

"A revenant is an undead creature bearing the memories and personality of the person it once was," Raven interrupted flatly, finally snapping out of her stupor to stand with her cloak gathered around her.

BB gave her a cockeyed look. "Huh?"

"Basically a cooler version of a zombie," the Revenant answered.

Beast Boy nodded with an "oh" and tested the word on his tongue. "Rev…Revan…"

Seeing his trouble, the Revenant just grinned and said, "Just call me Rev."

"Seems like a weird thing to call a speedster," Cyborg remarked absently, cautiously depowering his cannon.

The young speedster in question smirked ruefully and looked down. "If you knew my origins, you wouldn't think so."

"Then enlighten us," Robin said, approaching him.

Star lit up brightly and flew over to the rapidly forming crowd. "Yes! Please tell us your story of origin!"

His smirk faded as he gave them all a long look. "In due time, I'm sure. But first to answer the second part of your question." He nodded to Robin. "I'm here because…" he sighed hard, staring at the floor, "frankly, I need your help." He looked back up at Robin. "And I think you could use mine, too."

Beast Boy snorted and stuck his fang out obnoxiously. "Dude, we already _have_ a speedster. Two of 'em, actually—" he looked off to the side, distractedly tapping his chin. "Would the twins count as one speedster or two?"

The White Revenant huffed in agitation. "I'm not just talking about my powers. I'm talking about information."

Raven's eyes narrowed dangerously as she lifted a hand, encasing the speedster's lower half in dark energy and lifting him a foot or two off the ground. "And exactly what information could you have that would be worth me not throwing you into the bay—or another dimension?"

His dark gray eyes rolled as he shrugged midair. "Oh, I don't know." His intense gaze was directed straight at Robin. "Slade's true identity?"

Every Titan in the room froze in tandem, Raven abruptly dropping Rev, who landed without losing his balance.

Robin gave him a long, narrow-eyed glare. "I've been trying to solve that riddle for the past four years, and you're telling me that a speedster no one's ever _heard_ of suddenly has the answer? That's—"

"What," Rev interrupted, "impossible?" He smirked and crossed his arms. "This coming from the guy who lives and works with a half-demon sorceress," he started counting them off with his fingers, "a fully-integrated cyborg, an invulnerable alien princess, and a green guy who has the genome of the entire animal kingdom in his DNA."

Robin arched an eyebrow and shrugged with a huff. "Touché. Still doesn't explain why you know what you know."

"No," Rev replied, uncrossing his arms and striding toward him. "But that'll come, in time. Along with Slade's identity."

"Why not tell us now?" Beast Boy asked. "It'd save us all a lot of trouble."

His lips pressed into a thin line. "Because I need to know that I can trust you."

"Dude, we're the _heroes_!"

"Yes," he answered, shooting BB a cynical smirk, "you are. Heroes that are lauded by the public, worshipped by this city." He turned back to Robin. "Reputation is distinctly different from character, wouldn't you say?"

Robin gave him a long look before nodding slowly. "Trust is earned, not read."

"Exactly."

"Which means that you want something for your information, but you're not sure we'll accept. What is it?"

His lips pursed. "A shot for a place on the team."

The room fell eerily silent for a while.

"No," came a hoarse monotone.

Rev arched an eyebrow at Raven. "No?"

"No," she repeated forcefully, shooting him a glare.

The speedster smirked. "And here I thought that the roster was _Robin's_ call."

Raven could see Robin's jaw tighten, his mind churning as he detected the not-so-subtle bait in the statement.

"Much as I don't appreciate being undercut," Robin responded, "I have to agree with Raven. We don't know you."

"And I don't know you," Rev interrupted. "Yet."

"Or ever," Raven said.

He huffed in agitation. "Look, I'm not asking for a golden ticket or a free ride or that you're somehow supposed to instantly like me." He shrugged. "And yes, I will admit, breaking into your place wasn't the best icebreaker, but…" he snorted and waved to his surroundings, "seriously, solid walls with no electrified alloy? Made this place _way_ too easy to break into. You were practically begging me to waltz right in."

Raven's eyes flared with dark energy as she bared her teeth.

He held up his hands in surrender. "All I am asking for is a chance to prove myself and see who the Titans really are. Up close and personal. When I know that…" he sighed, "then I'll tell you everything."

Silence reigned over the room once more, the gears turning in Robin's head once more as Raven eyed their leader cautiously. Finally, he reached to the side of his belt and pulled out a small, rectangular device that Raven identified as a Bluetooth receiver.

 _No, he can't be—_

"Take this," Robin said. "It's a one-way closed system, for us to contact you, and not the other way around. When we feel the time is right, that thing will go off, and you'll get your chance." He held up a gloved finger for emphasis. " _One_ chance. You fail to follow orders, recklessly endanger civilians, or break into our tower again, and you're out. No arguments, no excuses."

His lips pursed as he took the device with a nod. "I understand."

Raven just stared at Robin, mouth slightly agape.

The White Revenant gave them all a look, eyes settling on Raven a bit longer than the others, though not by much. "See you around, then."

He was gone in the next second, having either phased through one of the walls or run down the stairs and out the front door. The moment he was gone, Cyborg made for the workshop, grumbling the whole way about Rev's comment on their security.

 _Probably going to shore up that defect now,_ Raven thought absently, internally fuming as she followed Robin into the hallway.

He noticed, and turned to face her. "Something you need?"

Her mind plowed through several responses before settling on, "Are you crazy?"

He had the audacity to shrug and play dumb. "It's possible, given what I put up with from you guys." He scratched his head. "And that's not even counting all the villains and thugs we deal with on a daily basis." An exaggerated shudder passed through his body.

Raven wasn't swayed by his wit. "We don't know _anything_ about this guy, yet from one conversation and one 'good deed,' you're just willing to let him run with us?" Her teeth clenched briefly, voice rising in volume. "Have you learned _nothing_ from the last four years? From Terra?" She could feel Beast Boy bristle a bit back in the common room, but plowed ahead anyway. "Over a year of silence from Slade's end, no contact whatsoever, and then this kid shows up and just _happens_ to know his identity? Tell me you're not _actually_ falling for this crap."

"Raven, trust me when I say that you're not telling me anything I haven't already told myself." He faced her fully, shoulders squared. "I made this decision for threefold reasons. The first, of course, is the information he supposedly carries. If he's telling the truth, it could be the break we've been waiting for since we stopped Trigon from crossing over." He frowned deeply. "We may have briefly allied to stop your father, but he _promised_ me that he'd be back to do our dance someday. And if there's anything I know for sure, it's that Slade keeps his promises.

"The second reason is that even if Rev is lying, or if he's telling the truth and has some ulterior motive in mind, someone with his kind of power can't just be turned loose. Better for us to keep track of him up close than to kick him to the curb and hope for the best. Keep your friends close—"

"And your enemies closer," Raven supplied, starting to deflate. "And the third reason?"

Robin's lips pursed hard. "If Slade's made us so paranoid that we're afraid to give the benefit of the doubt to a stranger who—apart from breaking into the tower—has given us no cause for suspicion…" he sighed, "then he's _already_ won." He shrugged. "And then what kind of heroes are we?"

"I…" Raven looked down and away, cloak gathered around her tightly. "I'm sorry. You're right…as usual."

Robin smiled a little and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I hear where you're coming from, Raven. I do. Don't ever think that your opinion doesn't matter just because I'm _mostly_ always right."

He smirked wryly, and Raven returned a small smile.

He patted her shoulder, then released her and turned to the rest of the team, who had not-so-subtly been listening in. "Training for this afternoon is cancelled. We've had a long day. I'm sure you're all exhausted." He huffed. "I know I am." He gave Raven one last look, then took Starfire's hand as she flew toward him. "Get some rest, all of you."

Raven barely caught his muttered remark as he and his girlfriend walked away.

"I have a feeling we'll _need_ it."

* * *

AN: So…this popped into my head over the course of several weeks, ideas I was toying with story-wise while trying to break another bout of writer's block. Surprisingly enough, it evolved into a semi-coherent plot based on the bulk of the show. In case you didn't pick up on it, this all occurs post-Tokyo, with the whole Trigon portal thing happening about a year back. It's not clear how much time passes during the course of the show, so I'm just making this so that the original Titans are in their latter teen years.

I want to make one thing _abundantly_ clear: though Raven and the White Revenant are two _major_ characters in this story, they are NOT BEING PAIRED. Canon pairings only. Apart from Batman and Wonder Woman, there isn't a single pairing in the DC Universe that I am absolutely ironclad on—except for Beast Boy and Raven. Just making that clear.

At any rate, feel free to review this at your leisure and pass the word along to your friends.

As always, _oya, vode._

\- CDrake


	2. Audition

It was almost a full week before the Titans had an alert worthy of the full team—and by extension, their newest recruit. As promised, White Revenant had stayed away and not attempted to rush things. Surprising, given his status as a speedster, but not unwelcome. Raven had had enough to deal with during the last week, between Starfire's unusually peppy attitude (she was celebrating the six-month anniversary of her and Robin's relationship) and Beast Boy _accidentally_ almost falling into her mirror again. She secretly believed him when he said it was an accident (that boy never could lie to her worth a damn), but he didn't need to know that. Better to be a little scared of her and be alive than "accidentally" fall into her mind again and get dead.

Trigon may have been blocked from entering their world, but Raven would be a fool to think that his influence on her was gone forever. As it turned out, however, she had very little cause to relax, since the day after _that_ incident, _this_ had happened. In the usual spectacular Titan fashion, they'd all been at each other's throats in the common area when their communicators' alerts went off at full volume, indicating a situation even more dire than usual. Upon arriving at the scene of the crime, Raven couldn't say she disagreed. In a seeming follow-up attack to the conflict that had brought them White Revenant, the same mercenaries had assaulted a repository of surplus tech from a closed-down branch of S.T.A.R. Labs in the nearby Star City.

The same suits were employed, with the same dangerous xenothium fuel powering their weapons. Thus far, no major damage had been incurred, either to the Titans or the city, but that was liable to change given how the mercs were starting to look like cornered animals. Rev, for his part, had arrived in record time, telling them that he'd seen the attack on the news and was just waiting for them to give him the go-ahead. In an attempt to curb his enthusiasm (and gauge how well he would follow orders), Robin relegated him to crowd control. To Raven's surprise, he obeyed unflinchingly, and within minutes, the entire hot zone was cleared of civilians. Since the beginning of the fight, however, that hot zone had kept expanding, and if they weren't careful, the conflict would escalate to proportions not even the five experienced heroes could contain—six if you counted the speedster…which, despite his performance thus far, Raven didn't.

Still, she had to give him credit. He'd dealt with the guns and noise and the grunt work with nary a complaint or dirty look, and he was still going strong. So why could she still not shake the feeling of unease she felt whenever he was around? He was almost _too_ happy to be working alongside the Titans. Beast Boy and Cyborg might attribute that to hero worship. Raven was undecided. Next to Robin, she was well-known as the most paranoid member of the team, and, she thought, for good reason. Considering the backstabbing and betrayal they had experienced in the past, any potential recruits had to be thoroughly vetted…which she supposed was _exactly_ what Robin had decided.

With a small internal sigh, Raven returned her attention to the battle below, levitating a block of concrete with her right hand while her left redirected another burst of lead. The shooter was pummeled when the concrete slab was split into a dozen smaller chunks and used to pelt him unconscious. Starfire was busy managing and dodging attacks from two of the armored attackers, countering them with copious starbolts and effectively clearing Robin a path inside the surplus. Beast Boy transformed into a pterodactyl when one of the suits entered flight mode, his beak digging into the back of one of its shoulder joints as Raven focused on the arm and used the new instability to tear it off.

The unarmored arm of the man inside flapped about in a panic, especially when Beast Boy turned into a gorilla and started crushing the canopy. Evidently, there was an eject button in the armor, since he was catapulted across the block they were fighting in before BB could do too much damage. Raven gave the changeling a slight nod once he got his footing, then split off to help Cyborg with a squad of mercs armed with some form of advanced energy weapons. Not xenothium-powered this time, thank Azar.

She used her abilities to crush three of the rifles, then throw the warped husks as projectiles to pin their former owners to the ground. Cyborg exchanged sonic fire with someone who looked like the squad leader, Raven forced to arc off when missiles streaked toward her from a grounded armor suit. They followed her flight path, causing her teeth to grit as she dodged and weaved through buildings and billboards, the missiles staying annoyingly close to her. As she prepared to either teleport behind the missiles or manually shove them away from her, a white streak ran atop the building she was coasting over, moving in circles that sent arcs of silver lightning in following patterns.

Evidently, between the lightning and massive friction built up, the missiles were confused enough to be drawn off-course. The White Revenant took off toward Raven once they closed to the point of no return, leaping off the rooftop as they exploded and running down the building on the opposite side of the block. He returned to the perimeter before Raven had time to either thank or scold him, and the pale girl frowned before flying back toward the heart of the battle.

…

 _You've_ got _to be kidding me._

Robin outright scowled as he stared into the glass window of a container filled with vials of purely refined xenothium.

 _There's no way S.T.A.R. Labs would be stupid enough to—_

A loud crash sounded from behind him, the Boy Wonder whirling about in a ready stance to see a large armored figure standing just inside a gap in the wall. This one was distinctly different from all the rest, almost humanoid in nature, its armor red and black with tubes of blue liquid running between its shoulders and arms.

Robin's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who are you supposed to be?"

A low, metallic chuckle came from the suit. "Is that glare supposed to impress me? I must say, you are _far_ less intimidating than your mentor, little bird." He motioned toward the teen. "Especially dressed like a traffic light."

Robin rolled his eyes. "Please, I get enough of that from my team. _Really_ no need to rub it in."

"Oh, but I wouldn't be rubbing _anything_."

The figure's arms rose to his sides, fists clenching as the air started to whip around the room. Robin glanced around nervously, feeling his feet start to slide out from under him and firing his grapnel toward a girder on the ceiling. A loud laugh came from the armored figure as his hands rose into the air, fingers splayed outward. Massive gusts of wind proceeded from the gauntlets, buffeting the Titan leader and straining his grip on the grapnel as he yelled in pain. As his grip began to fail, a familiar orange-violet blur streaked in through a window and snatched him out of the air, managing to keep a stable flight path despite the veritable tornado that had formed. In the middle of this maelstrom, the armored figure approached and picked up the container of xenothium, smashing through the case and reaching in before deploying a storage port in his right gauntlet and placing the canisters inside.

Turning to the heroes, who were arcing back toward him, the figure splayed his hands outward and drastically increased the power of the twister, the massive winds whipping about the building and tearing the roof off. Alarmed at the debris, Starfire arced away from the structure and landed on a nearby building, letting Robin down as they observed the situation. The figure stepped outside and hovered in place, a miniature tornado keeping him suspended just off the ground.

"And to answer your question, bird-boy, I…am Mr. Twister."

Robin's head shook slowly, muttering, "It's always the crazy ones." He pulled up his holographic map. "Titans, assemble!"

Over the course of about twenty seconds, within which Starfire flew around Twister and rained down starbolts while Robin did the same with explosive discs, the rest of the team gathered at their position and awaited Robin's orders.

"Who's this nut?" Cyborg asked.

"Wind powers," Robin answered, "calls himself Twister."

Raven snorted and crossed her arms. "Well _that's_ original."

"Original or not, he's wrecking the block trying to get away. We need to take him down fast, or at least find a way to contain him." He looked back toward Twister and Star, who was flung into an AC unit on an opposing rooftop. Robin winced. "This is getting seriously out of hand." After another moment or two, Robin turned back to his team. "Vic, you know weird tech better than anyone here. Are his powers technological or metaphysical?"

Cyborg stared at Twister for a while, red eye glowing even brighter until his head shook. "Can't say. Somethin's blockin' my scans."

"We'll know when we crack that can open," Beast Boy said, slamming a fist into his open palm.

Robin sighed but nodded. "Cyborg, you and I will work on isolating the source of his power and disrupting it. Beast Boy, annoy the hell out of him."

BB grinned toothily. "My favorite game."

"Raven, keep any debris from getting outside this block. If you can, send it right back at him."

The hooded girl nodded as another explosion sounded in the distance, Starfire having been tossed into the side of a building.

Robin gritted his teeth. "Titans, go!"

…

As their battle commenced in earnest, the White Revenant swept across one street after the next, nodding to new orders from Robin to expand the perimeter and making to clear each building one at a time. He stopped short when a half-dented car landed right in front of him, glancing around to see various other pieces of debris about to land on the block. Dark energy engulfed the larger pieces and sent them back toward the source, Rev smirking and heading off down the block to resume searching for civilians.

An ear-piercing screech reached his ears, the speedster looking up to see a green eagle careening toward the street in an uncontrolled descent, smoke rising from its feathers. Rev's steel-gray eyes widened, then brightened as they lit up with silver lightning, his legs rocketing him up the side of a building. Halfway up, he leapt off at an upward angle, cursing under his breath when he miscalculated the jump and missed the eagle by two full feet. Landing on the side of the opposing building, he ran down its surface and leapt downward with barely sixty feet left to the ground. With an internal fist-pump, he snatched Beast Boy's feathered form out of the air and planted his feet on the opposing building, boots skidding against the glass and steel on its surface.

He ran the rest of the way to the ground, gently laying the changeling on the pavement and checking him for visible injuries. The eagle squawked loudly a few seconds later, then transformed into a bruised and battered Beast Boy, who rubbed his head gingerly, one fang sticking out.

"Ooouwww…"

"You all right?"

BB looked up at him with owlish eyes, blinking a few times.

"Took quite the fall," Rev added, motioning upward.

He looked up, then back to the speedster. "Did you—"

"Yeah." Rev smirked. "Didn't seem quite right to just let you go splat."

BB slugged his shoulder with a smirk, then pushed himself upright. "I better get back to it." He was silent a moment. "Thanks."

Rev just smirked and tipped an imaginary hat, then took off down the street.

…

Raven grunted with a hard impact as she caught Starfire straight in the chest, the alien girl having been flung by the equivalent of an F-5 tornado after being hit by a car at the same speed. Gently pushing her off, the sorceress took to the sky, eyes and hands flaring with dark energy, as she weaved through the maelstrom of concrete and metal currently swirling around Mr. Twister. A tire impacted right between her shoulder blades, causing her to create a small bubble of dark energy around her body. Several more impacts began to strain her concentration until she yelled with a final burst of power, punching through the outer layer and getting inside the debris-strewn tornado.

Hovering some one hundred feet above Twister, Raven scowled down at him and gestured toward the debris closest to him with her hands.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

A band of dark energy curled around the ground-close debris, constricting and tightening in an effort to crush Twister's armor. Evidently, the villain noticed, because he looked up—straight at her, and motioned with one hand. It took Raven about two full seconds to realize what was wrong, and by then, it was too late. Any attempts to chant her mantra and summon more power were utterly curtailed by the fact that every dreg of air was being sucked out of her lungs by Twister's new wind concoction. The sheer vacuum of it threatened to collapse them entirely, only the base protective wards she always kept in place preventing that. All the same, the lack of air began making her lose consciousness, and black spots swam in her vision as she felt herself fall from the sky.

Moments from blacking out entirely, a giant green— _something_ barreled through the debris and smashed right into Twister, the vacuum stopping instantly and the maelstrom following a moment later. Twister threw the foreign animal into a brick wall, Beast Boy transforming again, this time into a dog-sized hedgehog that rolled toward the armored villain like a spiny wheel. Two explosive discs shattered against Twister's back, distracting him briefly before Cyborg's sonic cannon shattered the armor around his left gauntlet—not the one containing the xenothium, thankfully.

Starfire had also rejoined the battle, Twister sending a cone of fast-moving air to catapult her into a brick wall. Even unable to move her arms, however, Star's defiance burned in her eyes, two beams of blazing green energy lancing toward Twister and slicing through one of the cables connecting his pack to his gauntlets. In a moment of fury, the villain sent a wave of fast-moving air in a spherical shape around him, repulsing all the Titans simultaneously. Raven, still struggling to catch her breath, managed to cushion her fall enough to keep from breaking any bones, eventually rolling to a stop atop a nearby roof.

Half-crawling to the edge, she and the other Titans observed Twister taking to the skies beyond their perimeter, Starfire and Beast Boy peeling themselves off the pavement to follow. Since BB's flight patterns were mostly dependent on air currents, Twister's influence was making his life miserable, but Star kept up the pursuit with little difficulty. Robin and Cyborg, along with a recovering Raven, gave chase with the others, the remote-controlled T-car picking up the former and rocketing them toward Twister's location as the five heroes began to converge. And then attacks started raining from all directions, and between blasts of dark energy from Raven and explosive surprises from Cyborg, Robin, and Starfire; Twister's armor began to buckle and tear under the pressure.

With one final assault, Twister's armored form was thrown and pinned to the pavement by Raven's abilities, an experimental capture system from Cyborg catching on his chest armor and keeping him in place while the others moved in. Noting that he had only been using his right gauntlet to use his wind powers after the left cable was cut, Robin threw a plasma-lined shuriken with pinpoint accuracy and severed the other cable as well, effectively rendering him powerless. As the Titans touched down and approached him, Twister growled and raged against his bonds. Sending a mechanical glare at the Titans, he spoke in a threatening tone.

"If I can't have the xenothium… _no one will_!"

His right arm rose, and before anyone could stop him, most of the gauntlet detached from the appendage, rocketing off toward a distant building and striking the foundations with a massive explosion. The screams of untold numbers of civilians trapped inside reached them a moment later.

"Titans," Robin yelled, "move!"

They all sprinted or flew toward the building at a breakneck speed, Raven already seeing the damaged structure start to buckle under its own weight. With gritted teeth and a flash of determined fury, Raven reached out and encased the weakest side of the building in dark energy, feeling a migraine coming on at all the power she was expending but still going anyway.

"I—I can't—"

She couldn't finish, could barely keep up enough strength to stop the building from collapsing. Her temporarily lack of oxygen coupled with the extended battle and injuries she'd sustained to form a destructive combination that robbed her of much of her strength. Just as the other Titans reached the building, her will failed, and the barrier collapsed, the building going with it. Her violet eyes widened in horror.

 _No…_

And then she and the others were momentarily blinded.

An impossibly bright flash of silver light swept into the building from the ground floor up, faster than the supports were caving and any of them could possibly have moved, even with Raven's barrier. Figure after dusty, bruised figure appeared in the street and alleys around the structure, every window and gap in the building filled with silver light within the next half-minute. Five jaws dropped further and further over the course of that half-minute as the _entire_ population of the apartment complex was evacuated in record time. Finally, as the structure crumbled in on itself, a white blur came from its topmost floor and landed just outside, beyond the ring of civilians that had formed around the doomed building.

The White Revenant's white and gray form was splayed out on the asphalt, bent over double as his shoulders heaved with incredibly heavy breaths. The Titans, along with the evacuated civilians, all stared at him in shock. Slowly, he managed to look up at them, eyes settling on Raven after a while.

"Can you—" he gasped, "—can you teleport them out of here?" Rev motioned toward the civvies.

Raven abruptly closed her mouth and nodded stiffly, quietly muttering her mantra as dark energy engulfed the crowd. She felt a wave of energy leave her, having rarely teleported so many at once, but recovered her breath a few seconds later.

"I don't—I don't think I've ever gone that fast." Rev sluggishly pushed himself upright, stumbling over to the other Titans, Beast Boy stopping him from falling over again. He chuckled tiredly, leaning against the green teen heavily. "I'm gonna need a nap when we're done here."

"I think that counts for all of us," Raven remarked in her usual deadpan, giving Rev a strange look.

He opened his mouth to remark on her lack of snark when his eyes widened in alarm, and he shoved Beast Boy away from him. "Look out!"

The green teen narrowly avoided a flying lamppost thanks to Rev's quick motions, the rest of the Titans turning toward Twister to see that he had patched up one of the tubes and managed to free himself. Tired but determined, the Titans geared up to engage him once more when Rev put a hand on Robin's shoulder. The Titan leader turned toward him with a quizzical look.

"Mind if I borrow that?" Rev asked, motioning to one of Robin's electric batons.

Robin gave him a narrow-eyed look. "For what?"

The speedster smirked and nodded at Twister. "Hey, Cyborg. Just above his right forearm, do you see what I see?"

Cy narrowed his mechanical eye, his sensors scanning for a few moments. His eyes widened a moment later. "Yeah." He turned to Robin. "Rob, give it to 'im."

"You're sure?"

He nodded firmly, smirking malevolently. "Oh yeah."

Robin turned back to Rev and cautiously handed him the device.

The speedster grinned outright. "Just find a way to keep him distracted." He ran back into an alley, out of sight, leaving the senior Titans to face Twister.

Robin's lips pursed as Raven sent him a peeved look, the leader shaking his head slightly, then turning back toward Twister. "Titans, maneuver delta-four!"

BB groaned hard. "Oh, come on, boss—I _hate_ that one!"

He smirked in reply. "So do the bad guys. Go!"

They all took off at a sprint, Star and Raven breaking into flight halfway there as Twister began levitating loose chunks of asphalt and other debris, ready to send it at them. Starfire and Cyborg opened fire on the debris, shattering several of them, while Raven teleported behind him and used her abilities to send two pieces careening out of his grip and into opposite sides of his helmet. Robin grappled to the top of a nearby building to rain down explosive projectiles and get his attention focused upward, allowing Beast Boy to charge in as a cheetah and leap toward the armored villain, transforming midair into a rhino.

His horn dug deep into Twister's left shoulder, but his armored body was plastered to the ground when the villain's right arm picked him up and flipped him over his shoulder with a crash. The asphalt cracked as Twister ground him into the pavement with his armored boot, sending a current of wind to slam a weakened Raven against the side of a building, then buffeting Robin's position and sucking him off the rooftop. Moments away from being crushed by a robotic punch, Robin was snatched up by Starfire and carried to relative safety until Twister sent a nearby semi barreling into them, Star shielding her boyfriend from the worst of it. Twister felt the ground beneath his boot give when Beast Boy shifted once more, and looked around in confusion until he noticed the small green ant climbing up his chassis.

He didn't get the chance to swing before a gorilla drove a double-fisted smash into his already dented helmet. Nevertheless, Twister kept fighting, sending Beast Boy into the air and diverting a charging Cyborg while he sent dust and dozens of small pebbles swirling around him in a rocky maelstrom that gummed up quite a bit of his inner circuitry, not to mention the cuts and bruises inflicted on his human portions. Raven finally interfered with a massive telekinetic blast to his chest, sending him careening into a lamppost, which shattered upon impact. Grabbing the severed portion, Twister swung it in the air like a club, Raven narrowly avoiding being smashed twice as she withdrew higher.

A vacuum of air robbed her of altitude, and the club came back again, Raven stopping it with a magical barrier, but feeling herself constricted a moment later when Twister snatched her from the air with his left hand. His robotic appendage squeezed hard, and Raven could both feel and hear her bones giving under the pressure as she fought back the urge to scream. Beast Boy's gorilla form roared in outrage as he charged in, his frontal assault only serving to injure him more as he was backhanded across the face. A sonic blast to Twister's damaged left shoulder caused the arm's grip to go limp for a moment, Cyborg wrestling the appendage with both arms as Raven dropped to the ground and coughed hard, trying to recover.

A recovered Beast Boy took the other arm and pulled hard, Twister roaring and struggling against their restraints. With a burst of wind and power, both Titans were lifted off the ground and knocked into each other head-first, dropped on the ground a moment later. The three prone Titans looked up at Twister in horror as a giant vacuum formed around them, sucking the air out of the small spherical space and suffocating them. Before Twister could process what the sudden whirring sound could possibly mean, a white blur trailing silver lightning slammed into his damaged right arm, sending the appendage rocketing several dozen degrees in the wrong direction.

The fizzle of electricity was heard a moment before Twister roared and screamed in pain as an exposed circuit of his suit was used to send a massive current throughout its core systems, effectively frying his wind generator, at least temporarily. Scowling, the White Revenant ran away from Twister, but only to charge up for a leaping slam into the suited villain's chest, bowling him over onto his back. With the supervillain momentarily pinned, both of Rev's hands began to vibrate, silver lightning dancing off them at dizzying speeds. A second later, they plunged into the chest armor of the suit, staying there for a moment, then pulling out as the speedster snapped his entire body with the motion.

A short, lanky figure came with his arms, flying out of his grip and into a nearby car, denting its side heavily and shattering its windows. With a flash of silver lightning, Rev ran toward the pilot and slammed him back against the vehicle, then rained down a half-dozen speed punches and finished with a lightning-fast haymaker that knocked him out cold. Another flash and sprint, and Mr. Twister, or whatever his real name was, was cuffed to the door of the damaged car, the White Revenant finally coming to a stop and bracing his arms on his legs.

Beast Boy and the others began to regain their breath and footing, Star managing to punch her and Robin's way out of the collapsed structure they'd been pinned under and rejoin the team. The five, all various states of injured, stared at the suit, then the man that had been inside, then back at a heavily breathing Rev. The speedster noticed after a while and grinned.

"Dude," Beast Boy spoke up, "not that I'm complaining, but…a few minutes ago would've been great too."

"Considering how fast he was adapting to all of your attacks, if I'd hit him at anything less than Mach 1, he'd have seen me coming." Another heavy breath. "And after that evacuation…I needed to recover."

Robin knelt over the defunct suit, then glanced over at the unconscious pilot. "Well, whatever your reasoning, your tactic did the trick."

"And saved all our butts," Cyborg added with an agreeing grunt from Beast Boy. "Thanks."

Rev tipped an imaginary hat once again, smirking. "It's why I'm here."

Silence reigned over the torn-up street for a while, the sounds of police and rescue sirens getting closer by the second. And then a massive growl interrupted the calm of the moment. Four pairs of eyes glanced toward Beast Boy only to see him in his human form.

Rev's nervous chuckles slowly turned their gazes back to him, his right hand rubbing the back of his head. "So, uh…do you guys usually go out to eat after stuff like this?"

…

About an hour later, Twister was in police custody and his suit en route to Titans Tower for analysis. Meanwhile, the Titans themselves, plus White Revenant, were slumped over a table in a shared booth at a local Big Belly Burger. Since Robin had insisted on paying the tab (he usually did), and Rev was invited to join them, the speedster happily ordered a half-dozen of the meatiest, most Calorie-filled options on the menu. Though Raven had initially given him the stink-eye for "mooching" off their good will, Robin had explained that because of their enhanced metabolisms, most speedsters needed a minimum of over ten thousand Calories a day to avoid passing out from lack of nutrition.

Sending Robin a shy but grateful smile, Rev had dug into his late lunch/early dinner with Beast Boy-rivaling gusto, the vegetarian preferring to get three of the largest fry combinations. Once the eating had calmed down somewhat and the rest of the patrons stopped staring at the costumed heroes, Robin turned to Rev with an inquisitive expression.

"So, you have any stories?"

Rev looked at him quizzically, mouth halfway around his fourth burger. "What do you mean?"

Robin shrugged. "I mean, you're a speedster. Not exactly common, even in the world we live in, and considering how you handled yourself today…you must've done some pretty insane things."

He frowned deeply, chewing over the question and his next bite with methodical slowness. When he finally gulped, he looked back up at them. "No, not really."

Robin arched an eyebrow. "And why not?"

Rev sighed hard. "Because I'm not used to being a hero. In fact, my abilities were a curse to me, for the longest time."

Raven tensed up a bit.

Rev noticed, but didn't remark on it. "It was scary as hell, finding out I wasn't exactly human anymore. I wanted it to stop, especially since…" His features twisted in sudden pain and regret that not even the full-head mask could cover.

Raven took the moment to fully observe him for the first time. Since they'd met, she'd either been distracted by his personality or he'd been moving too fast to be perceived by normal eyes. His suit, which covered him from head to toe, was comprised of some kind of friction-proof spandex, with the predominant color scheme being white, of course, but several highlights of his boots, gloves, belt, and other sections were steel-gray and blue-tinged gray. His head was covered in a masked cowl that hid his hair, ears, and most of the space around his eyes, but left his mouth, chin, and nostrils exposed. On his chest sat two white, downward-striking lightning bolts with steel-gray outlines. Overall, the suit revealed only that he had a strict, functional sense of fashion and a thin yet defined body underneath.

Returning her attention to the conversation, Raven realized she'd spaced out for about a minute.

"Look, it's not that I don't want to talk about it, it's just…" Rev glanced around. "Not here."

Robin frowned, but nodded, and within minutes, they paid the tab and all filed into the T-car, then rode to a secluded section of the waterfront and unloaded onto the beach. Rev kicked at the rocky sand, briefly staring at the T of Titans Tower in the distance, then turning back to the rest.

"I know it's only been a week, and since we've met we've only worked together once…but you guys gave me a chance." His eyes narrowed slightly. "And unless I'm mistaken, I didn't blow it, so…"

Robin smirked a little. "No, you didn't. In fact, you performed a lot better than some of our other trainees."

Rev chuckled a little, fist-pumping in triumph. His gleeful expression petered out a bit. "Well, in that case…one good turn deserves another."

He reached up to his head and pulled back the cowl, revealing a young face with flawless skin and a fair complexion. His hair was jet black, with a kind of natural shine to it that brought out the brighter qualities of his steel-gray eyes. His lips slowly stretched into a smile as he let them get a good look at his face.

"My real name…is Lucas Carlisle. I'm from Blüdhaven." He sighed hard and leaned against the side of the T-car. "Now, my hometown is a whole country's distance from here, but as you've probably already guessed, I moved to Jump to be closer to the Titans."

Robin's arms crossed. "What I still don't understand is why."

"You will," Lucas assured him. "Eventually. For now, you'll have to be content with just knowing who I am. Shouldn't be hard to check up on me, make sure that I'm, you know, an actual person. I…" he frowned, "I want to trust you, I do."

"But?"

"But let's just say that whatever reasons you have to be suspicious of people, I've got more than a few of my own." He frowned. "Trust doesn't come easily to me, but I hope that one day you'll have earned enough to know why."

Cyborg arched his one human eyebrow. "Is this you sayin' goodbye?"

Lucas smiled a little. "For now, yeah. Unless there's something else you need?"

Robin shook his head slowly. "Now that we know what you're capable of, we're gonna push you even further, understand? Don't think that one success makes you a Titan."

He chuckled and pulled his cowl back on. "I wouldn't _dream_ of it. I know I have a long way to go from curse to blessing, so…" he nodded slowly, "trust me, I'm not gonna rush things."

The Titans' leader nodded firmly. "Catch you later then."

Rev chuckled and strode past them. "No you won't." And then he took off like a bat out of hell, vanishing from their sight in moments.

…

It was about two hours later when Lucas' Bluetooth communicator went off again, and he snatched it up tiredly, a small tinge of excitement in his bones.

"Where do you need me?"

"This isn't for an alert," a familiar monotone answered.

Lucas frowned in confusion. "Then why are you calling me, Raven? Couldn't have been just to talk."

"Actually, that's _exactly_ why I called."

He leaned against a wall. "What's on your mind?"

"You."

Luke arched an eyebrow. "Well, I'm flattered, but—"

"I can't figure out your game."

He was silent a moment. "There _is_ no game."

"You sure about that?"

He frowned. "Sure as I've ever been." A hard sigh. "Raven, why are you so intent on keeping me off the team? On refusing to give me a chance to be a friend?"

"I already _have_ friends."

"You have five friends. What difference is one more gonna make, really?"

"Enough."

Luke rolled his eyes. "That's not it, though, is it? That's not your truth."

Silence.

"You're not afraid for yourself, are you?" He smirked. "No, you're afraid for the others, afraid of what'll happen if I turn out to be another disappointment, or worse."

"You're a mystery, Carlisle," she interrupted with a note of agitation in her monotone. "I don't _like_ mysteries. Not ones that I can't read the end of."

Lucas' smirk widened. "Fair enough. But even when reading those mysteries, there's always that itch in the back of your head that you can't quite scratch. At least, not until you reach the end of the plot." He reached down to a nearby desk and twirled a coin between his fingers. "Think of this as the rising action, the part where you're left in suspense, with a lot of questions and not even half the answers you want. But Raven, I promise you, the answers are coming. I want to be a Titan. I _need_ to be a Titan. And when the time comes when I have to spill my guts or risk being kicked off the team, I'll spill, but for now…for now we see how this goes. All right?"

Silence reigned for a half-minute. "Fine," Raven finally replied in a deadpan.

Luke grinned. "Great. Now, if there isn't anything else…"

"There is one thing."

His ears perked up.

"Good job today."

Another grin.

"But I still don't trust you."

A low chuckle came from his throat. "Truly, my dear Raven…I'd be disappointed if you did." Another chuckle. "Until next time, Titan."

"Goodbye."

The line closed a moment later, Lucas staring at the earpiece for a few moments before laughing and tossing it onto the desk, then crashing onto a creaky mattress with a few bounces. His steel-gray eyes narrowed at the ceiling, and with some effort, he managed to block out his dilapidated surroundings and slow his heart rate from both the excitement of the day and his powers' usual influence. The speedster dropped off to sleep a moment later.

* * *

AN: Still unsure how long I want this story to be. I have a lot of plot arcs planned for the distant future, but those might just be sequel stories to this. I already have a lot of big projects in the works, so I kind of want to finish those before doing anything else major. All the same, this is the only story thus far where I can get my writing to flow, so…we'll see.

At any rate, I hope you're all still enjoying this and looking forward to more, especially regarding Lucas' past and origins, which will be coming in pieces over the next couple of chapters.

Please review at your leisure and pass the word along.

 _Oya, vode_.

\- CDrake

P.S.: Oh, almost forgot. The Mister Twister I had in this chapter was based on the Young Justice version of him, as you'll see in some of the following chapters. I haven't ironed out all the kinks in this starting plot arc, but when I know you'll know. Until then, _ret'urcye mhi_.


	3. Conspiracy, Part I

Robin's unmasked eyes narrowed at the sample of metal currently inside the tower lab's mass spectrometer.

 _Promethium housing for the power core. Good thing too. Don't want weapons-grade uranium exposed to damage._

Upon closer inspection, Twister's suit had revealed many distinct and, to be honest, frighteningly complex features, especially with regard to its wind-bending capabilities. Twister the man had turned out to be an ordinary human, with no identifiable fingerprints, history, or other name. Robin was still working on digging up more about him, but the suit…the suit was another matter entirely. The construction of Twister's exosuit bore a unique mechanical signature that, though distinct, was unidentifiable to Dick. He knew who would be able to pin it down, but stalled for the better part of an hour trying to figure it out on his own.

With a small groan and ruffling of his spiked hair, Robin finally caved and entered a side room connected to, but not part of, the lab. The one room in the entire tower that was completely soundproof, that only Robin was allowed access to. The one room that no one _ever_ tried to break into or disturb, especially when Robin was in there. The Boy Wonder grit his teeth as he closed and locked the door behind him, taking a deep breath to calm himself, then hitting a single stroke on the keyboard in front of him. A large rectangular screen flickered with light and static for a moment before asking for a password. He quickly entered a series of digits, then hit "enter" and waited.

The seconds dragged on as triple, then quadruple-layered encryptions were laid down on his system, the flash of a black symbol filling the screen for a moment before fading to a live camera feed. A breath of relief left Robin's lungs as a portly old man with a grizzled moustache filled the screen.

"Good afternoon, Master Dick. Or should I say morning? It is quite a bit earlier over there."

Grayson smirked. "Morning, Alfred. It's good to hear your voice again."

"Likewise, young sir." Alfred smiled widely. "Now, since this is over a restricted line, I assume this call isn't strictly social in nature?"

Dick's smile dropped off. "Afraid not." He plugged a data drive into a port of the computer terminal. "I'm sending you a data packet on a case I'm working. Need you to analyze it for any distinct signatures. Compare it to the Batcomputer's database."

Alfred frowned at his display, tapping a finger against the side of his jaw. His blue eyes widened slightly as his lips parted in horror. "Where did you get this?"

"Off the inside of an armored exoskeleton with wind-manipulating abilities."

"And no wonder," Alfred replied in a grim tone. "According to the Batcomputer's analysis algorithms, this exosuit is a ninety-two percent match to the work of one T.O. Morrow."

Dick's eyes widened. "T.O. Morrow? Didn't he design—"

"Red Tornado? Among other more nefarious robotic creations, yes."

Robin stared off into the distance. "So what's a evil genius mechanist's tech doing in a backwater city like Jump? What's his interest?"

"I haven't the faintest. Perhaps Master Bruce could shed some light on—"

"No," Robin interrupted. "I don't want him knowing about this."

"Master Dick, while I appreciate your need for independence, there is no shame in admitting when you are out of your depth." Alfred shot him a stern look. "Inversely, knowing you are outmatched and _refusing_ to ask for or accept help is a fool's endeavor."

Dick frowned and looked down.

"T.O. Morrow is a right villain who has given even the _Justice League_ a run for its biscuits. Confronting him or his creations without at least the _prospect_ of backup is—"

"I know, Alfred." He sighed hard. "And I'm not asking you to let this go. I just…don't want him to know about this. Not yet."

Alfred gave him a long look.

"Let me try to handle this with my team, and if I can't…I'll call you. I promise."

The older man bristled a bit, but sighed and nodded. "As you wish, sir."

Dick released a hard breath. "Thanks. For everything."

He bowed slightly and smiled. "Of course. Although I do hope you choose to call more often than every encounter with an unidentifiable supervillain."

Grayson chuckled and nodded several times. "I'll do my best, but it's been busy as a hive over here." He shrugged and grinned. "You know how it is."

"Only too well. Take care, sir."

"You too, Alfred."

…

A full month passed with the White Revenant acting as a provisional Teen Titan, each engagement with random thugs or even supervillains like Doctor Light further and further ingratiating him to the entire team…except for Raven. The dark girl stubbornly refused to concede her suspicions, not that anyone was surprised at this, least of all Carlisle. In truth, he seemed to almost admire her suspicious nature. Based on what he'd said about his own "trust issues," he probably saw her as something of an indicator to how much he could rely on the Titans to be on his side, and by extension, how much he could tell them about himself.

At least, that's the conclusion that Robin came to after Lucas and Raven had gotten into a small spat after the last showdown with Control Freak just two days ago. The speedster had completely shut down when she'd accused him of showboating to stroke his own ego. Based on his relatively bright, cheery personality and the experiences they'd had with similar people like Beast Boy and Kid Flash, it wasn't all that much of a stretch, but still. His reaction was rather…shall we say, extreme. His gray eyes had gone dead, lips pressing tightly together, and an air of deafening silence had fallen over the group, four of the Titans looking between their two comrades uncertainly.

Lucas had given them all expressionless looks, taking a moment to stare at Raven a bit longer than the rest, then taking his leave with a simple "goodbye" and a flash of silver lightning. Robin had approached Raven afterward, on the verge of yelling at her for the unnecessary belligerence.

"It's not unnecessary," she'd protested calmly. "If he's going to be a Titan, he's gonna be faced with situations that will test both his resolve _and_ his ability to handle unbelievable amounts of stress. If he can't hold up to a little yelling and ribbing, then me forcing him to quit the team would be doing him a favor."

Robin had stared at her agape, silently cursing himself for thinking that she'd do anything like that without purpose. He'd given her a slight but approving nod, then insisted that she clear anything else of that nature by him first. Raven had calmly agreed. Today, he'd informed the team beforehand that he was inviting Lucas to Titans Island, not the tower proper, to engage in a training course specially designed for speedsters. It was anyone's guess to whether or not he'd show up, given their parting terms. Lucas was _supposed_ to have arrived five minutes ago, Robin noted mentally as he checked the time with a frown.

As the time approached the six-minute mark, a gust of wind sent the capes of Raven and Robin twirling, and the five Titans turned to see Lucas standing there in plain civilian clothes. He was sporting a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a hooded leather jacket, the hood down and revealing an extremely short-cropped head of hair, cut almost down to the roots. He looked up at them with an apologetic expression, then held up a medium-sized box in their view.

"Sorry I'm late. Wanted to stop by a confectioner quick. Grab a little something for you guys. You know, token of my appreciation and all that."

Lucas held out the box, which was quickly opened. Beast Boy had to visibly restrain himself from salivating as he was faced with over a dozen different types of cookies.

"I mean," the speedster continued, "I know this isn't exactly acceptance to the team, and it's not an invitation to the tower itself, but…baby steps, right?" He grinned nervously.

Beast Boy grinned right back. "Dude…" he mumbled over a mouthful of cookies, "you're the MVP."

Lucas chuckled as Raven rolled her eyes.

"Perfect," she deadpanned, "give Beast Boy _more_ sugar, why don't you? Not as if he isn't hyperactive enough."

BB sent her a cookie-strewn grin. "You're just jealous 'cause you don't get all happy when you get sweets."

She sent him an arched eyebrow, calmly waving her hand to put a barrier over his face and stop any more half-chewed cookie crumbs from flying in her direction. Lucas just snorted a laugh.

Robin sent him a look and crossed his arms. "Any reason why you're not in uniform?"

"Several, actually. One, it'd be kind of weird for a superhero to step into a cookie store and start buyin' the place out—"

"Dude," BB interrupted, "we do that all the time."

"And two," Luke continued, "I don't need my suit to do my job. In fact, I find that it's sometimes for the better to train in gear that you're not used to, so you'll be prepared no matter what you happen to be wearing." He shrugged. "The anonymity is just a nice bonus."

Robin frowned for a few seconds before nodding. "Not many people have that reasoning. It's a good strategy."

Luke grinned. "Thanks. And I figured, since you guys know my identity already—" he shrugged, "—what's the harm?"

Starfire floated over to the speedster, examining his jacket with a curious air. "Boyfriend Robin, may I acquire a jacket like this?"

The Titans' leader blossomed red before coughing hard. "Uh…maybe. Won't be very useful in combat, but for everything else—"

She squealed joyously and enveloped Robin in one of her trademark bone-crushing hugs midair, the smaller teen grunting at the impact and waving his arms rather comically in an attempt to get her to stop. Raven stood there in a complete deadpan while Cy and BB vainly held back laughter and Luke gave them a curious look. He turned back to the giggling Titans and pointed sideways at the flying couple.

"Are they always like this?"

"This is actually one of their milder days," Raven answered.

He gave her a sideways look. "Huh."

It took another ten seconds before Star finally released Robin, the pair heading back toward the rest of the group in various shades of red and orange, the Tamaranean grinning the whole way.

"At any rate," Robin said sharply, "I think we've delayed long enough." He looked to the speedster. "Let's get started."

A minute later, they were standing just outside a large ringed area with electrified walls, Lucas staring into the apparently empty ring for a moment before sending Robin a quizzical look.

"You'll see once you step inside."

The speedster nodded slowly, then turned back to the ring's entrance gate. "So, what exactly will this course be testing?"

"Everything. Your speed, your agility, abilities to think fast and adapt on the fly. If you can name a skill, this course will test you on it."

Luke smirked. "Sounds like fun. So what do I do?"

Robin dropped a control from a pouch in his belt, then nodded into the arena. "Survive."

The speedster knelt into a runner's start, hands braced on the ground in front of him as he took several slow, deep breaths. His gray eyes narrowed as the other Titans stepped into a hovering observation tower overlooking the course.

"Ready?" Robin called.

"Ready," he replied firmly, silver lightning dancing in his eyes as he exhaled a long breath.

"Go!"

…

The White Revenant took off, the black of his zipped-up jacket leaving a darker streak than usual as he made for the center of the ring. Robin hadn't yet triggered the course's systems, waiting until Rev was distracted or unprepared for what came next. He _had_ said he was testing adaptability, after all. That included reaction time. When Rev seemed to twitch in anticipation, he hit the control, activating an automated electric pylon behind the speedster. Arcs of azure lightning streaked between the pylon and metal rings on the ground, catching Rev's attention. A moment later, Robin touched the control once more, and a pair of turrets leapt from the ground behind the distracted speedster.

Semi-automatic fire spat from the turrets as Rev whirled and spun to avoid the initial salvo, then started running in spirals in an attempt to throw off their tracking systems. Robin amped up the difficulty on the turrets, and they spun into full-auto mode, Rev making for cover only to find his way barred by the arc wall created by a new electric pylon, stretching between itself and the first one. Apparently preferring a little shock to a hailstorm of energy bolts, the speedster charged through the gap, growling his way through the momentary pain and coming out the other side with some distance between himself and the turrets. He visibly rolled his eyes in annoyance when another pair of turrets and pylons popped up on his side of the electric fence, creating a symmetrical pattern of traps.

Figuring they would have a harder time tracking him at closer range, Rev charged toward the turrets and ran around them in a high-speed figure-eight. His fast movements were too much for them to handle, and before he knew it, one of the turrets was smoking as its hydraulics were overtaxed trying to keep up. With a blur of silver lightning, he charged for the exposed joint of the turret and yanked its primary fluid line loose, spilling the slippery liquid and preventing it from even lifting its weapon. The other turret was still tracking him, but not for long as he ran around it in circles, dodging its fire periodically as it registered him in front of it every fifth of a second.

The turrets on the opposite side hadn't fired since the second pair had deployed, probably as a mechanism to prevent friendly fire or some such, which meant making them shoot each other—or those pylons—wasn't an option. Rev chewed his lower lip as he kept lapping the barely functional turret, face stretching into a smirk as he got an idea. His right arm reached up as he leapt atop the defunct turret's chassis and grabbed the hydraulic cable, yanking it from the mountings and pulling it taut. Apparently, there was a lot more slack beneath the surface, because the cable itself began stretching far beyond the confines of the turret frame.

 _Perfect,_ he thought, aiming the ruptured end at the arc pylons.

Though the plan was solid, the pressure in the hydraulic line was severely diminished to due loss of fluids. With a small frown, Luke turned his attention to the remaining turret and leapt for its joint as well. When the machine spun its top and smacked him across the face with its gun barrel, Luke grunted and smacked to the deck back-first, the barrel of the turret leveled against him a second later. He was gone right before the first bolt hit, barely staying ahead of its firing arc and pondering his next move at lightning speed. Looking back up at the turret he'd resumed running around, a thought occurred to him, and he altered his running pattern to dash straight at it.

A flying leap occurred like before, and like before, the turret spun to smack him away. Unlike before, however, the speedster's body was vibrating at a massive speed—the natural frequency of air. That is, until the turret's unorthodox attack phased through him and he came out the other side—with his right hand around its hydraulic cable. His grip was firm when he solidified. Gravity did the rest. The cable snapped loose with a loud, metallic pop, the speedster immediately rushing to point it at the pylons. The slippery liquid flew from the ruptured tube, coating both pylons evenly and causing their circuitry to short out.

One electric wall fell, but the other was still in place, keeping him from getting to the last two turrets. As he considered how to get past the new obstacle, the struts supporting the electrified walls revealed false panels with laser emitters that sporadically activated and deactivated with his movements.

 _Greaaaat._

Half-scowling, the Revenant made for one of the walls and slid under a beam that activated barely ten feet in front of him. Sliding upright, he sprinted for the strut and leapt over a beam to land on an emitter in a crouch. Vibrating his arms, he dug both hands into the emitter's inner workings and felt his right hand's fingers brush against something hard and smooth. Smirking, he yanked on it hard and tore it loose, a small, round mirror grasped in his hand. He stood directly in the firing path of one of the lasers, then angled the mirror toward the beam, reflecting it toward the other emitters, then the arc pylons, cutting through their delicate, exposed circuitry with ease.

Rev let out a small whoop of celebration before taking off toward the last two turrets, completely unaware that Robin had something else in store for him. Halfway to his targets, the ground in the center of the arena opened up, revealing an elevator that contained a large, twelve-foot bipedal robot with two cannons for arms.

"Oh, come _on_!"

He arced toward the robot and leapt atop its chassis before it could fully deploy, but a massive electric shock jolted his system and knocked him clear off. Despite the pain of both the shock and his fall, Rev smirked.

 _They took my advice about electrified surfaces._

He sent Robin a small, two-fingered salute, then took off as the 'bot pointed one of its cannons in his direction. Meanwhile, the two turrets had resumed their firing and were tracking his every movement with even greater precision than before. It seemed they learned his patterns of movement and used previous knowledge to predict his next moves.

 _Time to shake it up a bit._

Charging for the turrets, he streaked between them before spiraling outward and making directly for the robot. He took a flying leap toward its domed head, leaping down a split-second later and cocking his head curiously when he heard the turrets' bolts impact something that wasn't air or the ground. When he ran around to the robot's front, he had his answer. Though the turrets had been configured not to shoot stationary targets in the arena, like the pylons or other turrets, it seemed that moving targets were harder to pin down, and thus were not programmed as friendly.

Grinning at his new knowledge, Rev streaked between the robot and the turrets, tracking both of them toward his position and causing more and more damage to the 'bot the more he ran. Eventually, it too adapted. The massive machine raised both its fists high and brought them down hard as he ran back in its direction. Not expecting the move, Rev was knocked off his feet when the massive vibrations of the ground-pound carried into his legs. He tried to turn his fall into a roll, but the turrets took advantage of his sudden lack of speed or direction. A scream of pain was torn from his throat when he felt one of the bolts impact the back of his right shoulder.

Not even bothering to look at the injury, Luke growled and sped away from the attacking machines, running the perimeter of the arena as he let anger fuel his speed. Barely five seconds after being hit, Rev was running faster than ever, using his newfound momentum to dodge the incoming fire with ease. He arced around the attacking 'bot, which had started running at him, and leapt toward the base of one of the turrets. His right leg swung at it midair, the sole of his heavy steel-toed boots smashing through with his fantastic speed and causing the weapon to topple over. The second turret turned to face him, but he just leapt for its joint and yanked its hydraulics loose. Fluid spilling from the defunct weapon, he angled the cable at the robot this time, dousing it in the liquid, then running around it and leaping atop its uncoated left shoulder.

Waiting about a half-second, the time it had taken to shock him last time, Rev leapt off and rolled on impact with the ground as the current combined with the fluid to ignite in a firestorm of flammable liquid. The robot's systems overheated, arms flailing about madly and cannons firing sporadically. Dodging its now-undirected fire, Rev waited for the flames to die down a bit, and then he took his shot. Silver lightning danced in his eyes and, indeed, his entire figure as he dashed for the massive machine, leaping straight for its head while vibrating his body. With a whir and explosive noise, he came out the other side and landed in a crouch, just staying there as the bot stood in place.

Two seconds later, it gave a metallic groan and slowly fell over to land with a loud clang. Lucas followed a moment later, slumping against its metallic corpse and heaving a little for each breath. He looked up at Robin and the rest of the Titans.

"You got me breathing heavily," he called to them with a grin and thumbs-up. "Kudos."

The platform they stood on slowly lowered to the ground, the Titans moving to join him in the now-open arena.

"That was quick, efficient work," Robin commented.

Rev shrugged. "Thanks; I try." He frowned a little. "Though was it really necessary for _all_ of you to be here watching? Feels like I'm on an episode of _America's Got Talent_."

Beast Boy and Cyborg snickered a little while Starfire shot Rev a confused look.

Robin just smirked. "As Raven pointed out to me yesterday, we need to know how you deal with stress and pressure. Considering the job—"

"Yeah, got that." He gave Raven a passing glance. "So, what now? More training?"

Robin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, the Titans' communicators went off all at once, indicating a mid-level alert. "Trouble," he muttered, pulling up the holoprojector in his gauntlet.

A security feed was displayed that had all six heroes staring at the holographic screen. A force of mercenaries had broken into a nuclear power station just two miles outside the city. Based on the camera feeds, they weren't there to do damage as much as pilfer material—presumably nuclear material. Rev frowned at the feed. He was no detective, but between the attempted xenothium robberies, the power amplifier he'd caught for the Titans, and this nuclear theft, it was looking an awful lot like someone was looking to create some kind of energy source. Whether that energy was constructive or destructive was anyone's guess. Luke's money was on the latter.

"Cyborg," Robin said, "get the T-car ready."

"I'm on it. BB, gimme a hand."

The changeling shuffled off to help while Star exchanged a look with Robin and made for the vehicle as well. Robin was typing into his gauntlet, another half-dozen screens coming up as he interfaced with the tower's database. He frowned into the device and narrowed his eyes as Rev stole a glance at the screen.

 _T.O. Morrow…never heard of him._

"It's not polite to look over someone else's shoulder."

Luke turned to face Raven, who was staring at him from under her hood with an unreadable expression. "Sorry." He smirked. "I've got something of an infinite curiosity, to be honest." His fingers twitched and played with each other absently. "Like…an itch in the back of my head, to learn as much as possible as fast as possible." He shrugged. "Maybe it's part of being a speedster."

Raven gave him a long look, violet eyes searching his face and body language. "What's the deal?"

He gave her a sideways look. "Thought we already went over this. There _is_ no deal."

"I don't mean overall. I mean you. Here, now, in light of what happened yesterday."

Rev didn't need a reminder, and his features twitched toward a frown briefly before he smiled ruefully and took a deep breath. His head shook slowly as he exhaled.

"Yesterday, you looked like a kicked puppy, and now you're showing up with cookies, like nothing happened?"

A low, sardonic chuckle came from his throat. "I'm a speedster, Raven. I know there are things in life worth taking time over…but holding a grudge isn't one of 'em. Life's too short to waste on garbage like that."

Robin finally closed down his gauntlet and made for the T-car hangar with the other two heroes in tow. "Rev, I want you to run to the plant ahead of us with Starfire. Scout the place out, then report hostile numbers and approximate locations."

"You got it," he replied evenly, sending the alien a nod as she flew toward him.

"And uh…do you really want to go out looking like that?"

Luke looked down at himself and chuckled a little. "Right. Thanks." He vanished for a moment or two before returning in his full uniform, minus the cowl, which was pulled back.

Robin looked him over. "Where did you—"

"Stashed a duffel bag behind a rock when I ran here. Figured I might need it at some point."

"Right…well, good luck then."

Lucas nodded to him, then glanced at a hooded Raven, a wry smirk stretching over his features. "And for the record, I don't showboat."

Raven looked toward the Revenant with an unreadable expression as he pulled the mask over his face.

He shot a grin in her direction. "I just do good work. If I make it look good while I'm at it—" he shrugged and stepped back toward the coastline, "—who can blame me?"

Luke sped off a moment later with Starfire in tow, loud pops sounding in the distance seconds later as they both went supersonic.

…

Barely five minutes after the two heroes had left the main group, Robin heard back from the scout team.

"We're here," White Revenant reported, "but it's a bit strange."

Beast Boy arched a green eyebrow. "Dude, you're talkin' to a team of metas and freaks of nature—yes, Rob, that includes you—gonna have to be a bit more specific."

"What friend Rev means is that these 'TYGERs' are not _assaulting_ the building. The staff are ushering them in without complaint or threat."

Robin's brows furrowed. "You think they're working with them?"

"Or maybe this was a false alarm?" Rev suggested. "TYGER _is_ a mercenary corporation, but not all mercs are hired for the wrong reasons."

The Boy Wonder's head shook slowly. "Why would a public power facility need private contractors to keep it safe? It doesn't add up."

"I will give you that. What are your orders?"

"We'll be there soon. Try to stay out of sight, and if you can, find out what they're up to."

"You got it."

Robin frowned and narrowed his eyes at the dashboard, Cyborg driving and allowing their leader to think hard on the current situation. Since discovering that Twister's tech was tied to T.O. Morrow a month ago, the possible conclusions he had on the current string of heists had only gone from bad to worse. The pilot himself had gone irreversibly catatonic following his rather brutal beatdown by White Revenant, refusing to speak to anyone and only doing enough to satisfy his bodily needs. That left the captured mercs and any physical evidence left at the scenes, which, apart from the Twister exosuit, left zero indications of source or motivation.

The xenothium cannons in the other exosuits seemed indicative of a certain rogue scientist's hand, but Robin had been tracking Chang since the day they'd met Rev, and the net of information he had surrounding his communications wouldn't let anything in or out without his knowledge. By all past indications, mere thievery didn't seem like T.O. Morrow's style, and what _could_ be constructed using the successfully pilfered components had nothing to do with android production or any other forms of robotics. The most recent development, TYGER, was a mercenary corporation infamously employed in illegal conflicts in Middle Eastern and other war-torn nations like Qurac and Markovia, typically by supervillains who stood to gain something from the conflict itself.

None of the usual suspects intersected with any figures who could normally be associated with the previous heists and attacks, but the correlation of times and contents of acquisition was too clear to be coincidence. This left Robin with only one possible conclusion: that whoever was truly responsible for these attacks was using the signatures of other known villains in an attempt to mask their own identity. For what purpose, he wasn't sure. As point of fact, without any of the other components, he didn't know what use the current target, nuclear fuel rods, would serve. All he knew for sure was that the road this entity had started the Titans on ended in their arrest.

Within another five minutes, Robin and the rest of the team arrived at the power plant, the leader motioning Raven to phase through the upper wall of the plant and scout the area. Robin, Beast Boy, and Cyborg entered from a lower point and silently made their way upward. About a minute into the infiltration, Robin's earpiece buzzed again.

"Robin," Rev said, "bad news."

He frowned. "Talk to me."

"Looks like not all the employees were in favor of the hostile takeover. Just found a group of 'em that are zip-tied to standpipes in one of the storage rooms. Do I get them out?"

Robin frowned deeper, then shook his head. "Not yet. Not until we know what TYGER is doing here."

"Got it."

The Boy Wonder motioned upward to Beast Boy, who transformed into a spider and crawled up the inside wall of the building, making his way to an upper rafter overlooking the deeper workings of the structure. He transformed into his human form, then tapped his earpiece, whispering to the others.

"Dude, I got a masked douche shoving around one of the lady scientists. Can I _please_ clock him?"

Robin's lips pursed. "If you can do it quietly, without being seen, yes."

"Oh…I got this," BB exclaimed excitedly.

Robin glanced around the corner curiously, managing to spot the merc in question and wondering at his sudden erratic behavior until he saw him pull his mask off, sweating heavily.

 _Wait…is he—_

A confused but amused grin slowly spread over Cyborg's face as Robin looked on, impressed, the mercenary going pale and collapsing moments later. The female scientist stared and gaped at his unconscious body until a green speck next to him rapidly grew into the form of Beast Boy. A small yelp came from her throat until he put a gloved hand over her mouth, one index pressed against his lips as he nodded toward Robin and Cyborg, who ushered her out the exit door. Cyborg stopped next to the unconscious merc and stared at him curiously.

"What'd you do to him, B?"

"Rapid self-replicating viral infection." The green teen grinned toothily with a smug look on his face. "I gave him a _really_ bad head cold really fast."

Both Cyborg and Robin nodded their approval and proceeded deeper into the facility, about a minute passing before their communicators clicked on.

"They're here for fuel rods," came Raven's deadpan tone. "I can see two engineers proceeding into a hazmat storage area. They're being monitored by two TYGER guards. The rest of the squad is outside in the hallway."

"Roger," Robin replied. "Pull back and find Starfire. She's been awfully quiet the past few minutes. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I will get there as soon as we can."

…

Rev frowned deeply as he listened to the conversation over comms.

"One thing I don't understand," he said suddenly.

"Rev?" Robin asked.

"If these thugs are working for the same person as all the other heists, what do they hope to accomplish? The other thefts all failed. A WayneTech power amplifier, purified xenothium, and now uranium—combined, they form something with a ton of potential energy, but each target in itself is virtually useless without the other pieces."

"I don't know," he replied in a worried tone. "I don't like not knowing."

"Makes two of us."

The Revenant fell silent after that, kneeling down on a perch overlooking one of the plant's coolant towers. Over a dozen TYGER mercs were posted at various locations around the plant's grounds, all armed with automatic weapons. His gray eyes narrowed at one of the mercs, outfitted a little differently from the rest, who was speaking into a satellite phone. His face was masked in a military balaclava, so his expression couldn't be seen, but the man's body language spoke of professional tension at whatever the person on the other side of the line was saying. Suddenly, he hung up the phone and started shouting at his men.

Rev put a finger to his earpiece. "Robin, something's going on with the commander. He's getting his men into motion, sending them into the building. None of you would happen to have tripped any alarms, right?"

"No," Robin answered confidently.

"Well..." Beast Boy started.

"What did you do?"

"I noticed something blinking on the guy I knocked out after he hit the deck. Could be related?" he tacked on uncertainly.

Rev could practically hear Robin facepalming over the link. "Vital monitors. Of course. Should've known from previous experience."

"Experience with TYGER?" the Revenant asked. "Do tell."

"Later," Robin replied. "Can you slow them down?"

Luke cracked his knuckles and grinned malevolently. "Oh, I can do more than that."

The speedster took off like a bullet, bowling over the first two mercs to come his way and catching their attention as they all screamed, "Contact!" White Revenant grinned and sped around four of them in a circle, dodging automatic gunfire and weaving between them as they crisscrossed their shots in an attempt to trap him. A cross was snapped to the ribs of a merc he passed, followed by a rising palm to the chest of another, bowling him off his feet. A bullet whizzed by the front of Rev's nose, entirely too close, so he sped away to get some distance, running up one of the coolant towers in a zigzag motion as gunfire followed him.

He looped back down toward them, too many close calls to count as he stayed barely one step ahead of their fire. Briefly circling the group, Rev sped toward the commander only to fall into a slide as he fired two guns at him, both his rifle and sidearm. As he slid to a stop right in front of him, he saw the man swing his pistol down at him and twisted to the side. The blow passed him by, followed by a rising uppercut with the weapon that Rev leaned away from. Luke swept behind him and countered with a series of rapid punches placed all over his back. A dozen speed punches landed before he heard gunfire on his left and turned to see a half-dozen lead slugs fly toward him.

Barely missing their commander, the bullets flew past Luke's body as he dashed away from them and ran toward his attackers. Both arms outstretched as he caught them both in the chest, fingers curling around their collars as their feet left the ground. They planted on the pavement hard as he barreled into another guard with a shoulder charge, feeling ribs give as he sped past. The impact from the shoulder hit threw him slightly off-balance, however, nearly causing him to trip. As a result, his running pattern was off enough for one of the soldiers to get a bead on him and fire.

A yelp came from his throat as a bullet grazed his left arm, another actually punching straight through his right arm before he regained his footing and sped off out of sight. He breathed heavily as he slumped against an industrial container, inspecting his right arm to see a clean through-and-through wound, exhaling hard, then letting his head fall back against the wall with a thud. After another couple of rapid breaths, he peeked around the corner of the container to see two soldiers standing guard outside while the rest ran into the facility.

Rev tapped his earpiece. "Robin, I kept them away for a bit, but couldn't stop 'em all. You've got incoming."

To Luke's surprise, Robin replied, "Good."

He arched a brow. "Excuse me?"

"Gives us an excuse to pull back."

"Pull back? Did I miss something?"

"Just trust me. Stay away."

Luke hissed in pain and grimaced hard. "Considering the nine-millimeter hole in my arm, I think I can do that."

"Hole?" Beast Boy asked suddenly. "You okay?"

The speedster smirked ruefully. "Not the first time I've been shot, and it probably won't be the last."

"Find me when this is over," Raven piped up. "I'll fix it."

"Much appreciated," he hissed out, grimacing again as he felt his flesh knitting back together, "but I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Dude," BB exclaimed, "you got shot!"

"In the arm. It's a clean through-and-through, nothing to take out—and I'm a speedster. Accelerated healing."

"Oh…gotcha."

Rev peeked around the corner again, catching a squad of TYGER guards sprinting out of the building, one of them carrying a case of what he assumed to be fuel rods. The rest were firing at the building and the five Titans following them out. When they all arrived at a large black van, two of them pulled a large, shoulder-mounted device from its back and aimed it at the team.

"Titans, scatter!" Robin yelled.

As the device went off, sending a dozen micro-rockets streaking toward them. Time slowed to a crawl for Rev as Raven flash-teleported the team out of the way, the missiles still going. Seven of them impacted the inside of the building, sending massive tremors through the support structures but leaving the overall building intact. The other five kept flying past, and when Rev saw where they were heading, his gray eyes widened, and he took off after them. Silver lightning followed in his wake as he ran up the damaged main building and clipped the back of one missile with the side of his hand, throwing it off-course.

He headed for a second one, but stuttered mid-step when it and the one directly next to it were encased in dark energy. Sparing the now-materialized Raven a glance, he smiled and sped for the rest of the missiles. An upward leap brought him just within striking range of another, and he sent it flying into a chain-link fence some distance below. Only two missiles were left now, but Luke was running out of roof. Putting an extra burst of speed into his legs, he rocketed toward the last pair, arcing left when the one on the right also came to a stop in Raven's grip. With his last steps, the Revenant accelerated another two dozen mph and took a calculated leap off the roof, arms swinging wildly in the air as he flew toward the missile at nearly seven hundred miles an hour.

With a final yell of exertion, Rev swung his right arm downward, smacking the rear of the missile at such high velocity that the inner workings of its propulsion system were short-circuited, and it tumbled toward the ground aided only by gravity—right where Rev was slated to land.

 _Well…crap._

He needn't have worried, as a black grip encased his entire body a split-second later, not only keeping him from falling further but lifting him away from what was actually quite an impressive blast radius for such a small device. Arms shaking, Luke pulled back his cowl and bent over double the moment his feet planted on the roof, heaving for breath as his heart went on overtime—which for speedsters means well over eight hundred beats per minute. When it finally slowed to around four hundred after about ten seconds, he managed to straighten up and send Raven a grateful smile. They descended to the rest of the Titans a moment later, Beast Boy grinning in his direction as Rev came to a stop.

The speedster in question turned to Robin with a skeptical look. "Not that I'm questioning your decision, boss, but do you really think letting them go was the best idea?"

Robin glanced at him with a smirk. "Under normal circumstances, you'd be right, especially considering the damage they almost caused to the plant's main cooling tower."

"But?"

The Boy Wonder grinned almost sinisterly as he powered on his holographic gauntlet. "I figured we'd have better luck getting information this way. You were right before, when you said this theft didn't make any sense. They have none of the other components, which begs the question of why. Are they planning other heists to reacquire materials, or is there something else at play? Best answer for _all_ these questions is…"

The gauntlet screen showed a GPS readout of the city—with a moving red dot on it.

"…the source."

Rev blinked. "You put a tracker on the rods."

"Bingo," Cyborg answered. "They hightail it back to their boss, and we spring the trap soon as they let their guard down."

The speedster just nodded and took another heavy breath, still not quite having caught his. He mentally noted the others standing immobile and wondered at it until the roar of a throaty, heavy engine reached his ears, and he saw the T-car pull up next to the team of five. As they all piled in, he got ready to run, but stopped when he saw Raven's stare and Beast Boy's peeved expression.

"What?"

"Dude," BB replied loudly, "your arm!"

He glanced at it, then shrugged dismissively. "Just a flesh wound."

Beast Boy kept staring at him expectantly, Robin observing the exchange somewhat passively, but noting every detail.

"I'm _fine_ ," Rev reiterated.

"Let me put it another way," Raven deadpanned with just a hint of menace to her tone as her eyes began to glow. "Get in the car before I _make_ you."

Given how easily she'd managed to catch him when they first met, he had no illusions about her ability to follow through, so he caved and hopped into the backseat, sandwiched between Raven and the door. He went for the seal on his suit's torso, but Raven simply let power flow to her hand and phased his right arm through the sleeve as she got to work. While the sorceress was preoccupied with that, Rev looked toward Robin in the front passenger seat, the holographic map still showing a moving target.

"So what now?" Luke asked suddenly.

"Now," Robin replied in a voice laced with threat, "we wait."

* * *

AN: So, intermittent bouts of writer's block and schoolwork prevented me from releasing this earlier this week. Sorry about that. This is probably going to be a three-part arc, now that I think of it, and after that I might stop for a while. Depends on how I feel by the end. Don't worry. I'll button it up nicely. If you've read my other work, you know I don't like cliffhangers, so just sit tight and wait for resolution.

Anyway, I noticed that I'd focused a lot on the other Titans the last couple of chapters, and every time I showcased White Revenant, he was doing something of showstopper quality. I wanted to make this chapter about limiting him a bit more, making it clear that feats like clearing an entire building in seconds or hitting something at the speed of sound are difficult for him to perform, more one-offs than standard-issue actions.

I also want to make it clear that yes, he is going to be a bit overpowered in this story. That is for several reasons, one of which will not be forthcoming until very much down the line. The other is that the Speedforce is, in my opinion, one of the top ten broken (as in overpowered) abilities in all of comic history. Enough said.

At any rate, I hope you're enjoying this so far. Admittedly, it's not something I consider my best work, but it is something fun that I've wanted to try my hand at for a while since I've always been a Teen Titans fan. That and I _love_ speedsters, though really only ones powered by the Speedforce.

Review at your leisure, and _oya_.

\- CDrake


	4. Conspiracy, Part II

"This is a very bad idea."

Mentally, Robin agreed with Lucas, but this had been _his_ plan, and compared to the other possibilities, it was the least bad idea. The moment they'd arrived at the final destination of the TYGER van, a sinking dread had overtaken much of the team. The building was at the edge of Jump City, right next to the coastline, and it was _crawling_ with guards. Not only was the usual fare of high-impact ballistic weaponry in play, but also directed plasma, more of those cluster missile launchers, and Cyborg swore he saw one or two EMP emitters. The last ones he would have to be especially careful around, since they could potentially fry a good portion of his circuitry.

Though initially concerned, Cyborg had assured them that his core functions were EMP-hardened, so if hit, he'd be fine, just lose power to some of his flashier weapon systems. Returning his mind to the present, Robin looked over at Raven, who was perched on a radio tower mounted on the building they currently stood atop.

"Raven, you can sense them. How many are we dealing with?"

Her violet eyes narrowed slightly. "At least two dozen on the perimeter alone. The volume of their emotions is too loud for me to get a glimpse of the inside."

Robin frowned. "Beast Boy, think you can get a mini-cam in there unseen?"

"Long as they don't have a problem sharing their space with a horse fly, nope."

Robin pulled the device in question, a camera about the size of a quarter, from his belt and tossed it to Beast Boy, the changeling laying it on the ground of the roof, then transforming and picking it up with his six legs. The quiet buzz of his flight faded in the distance as Robin pulled up his holo-screen, the rest of the team gathering around as their leader quietly commented on the feed.

"Two snipers on the upper catwalks near the main entrance, plus motion-sensitive auto-turrets in case they miss." He swiped his index across a control on his gauntlet, switching the camera to infrared mode. "Explosive charges near the main door, probably in case someone inputs the wrong entrance code." Robin frowned deeply and sighed hard. "This place is a fortress."

"Rev was right."

The team turned to Raven.

"This is a really, _really_ bad idea."

"That may be," Robin admitted, "but we're not gonna let that stop us. These guys wanted that uranium for something. Even if they _don't_ have all the other components, the amount they stole is still enough to create a dirty bomb with a sizeable yield."

"Based on my calculations," Cyborg added, "big enough to take out almost a fifth of Jump City, and that's assuming they don't enrich it further."

"Friends," Star said suddenly, pointing at the feed.

As they all looked back, they understood her meaning. Beast Boy had somehow managed to find a chink in the building's outer armor, a gap that he buzzed through, allowing him deeper access to the fortress. What they saw wasn't good. Rack upon rack of power armor was mounted on every one of four floors of the warehouse's main loading bay.

"I'm guessin' this is why Twister was after all that xenothium," Cyborg said.

"This is _so_ not good," Rev muttered.

"Beast Boy," Robin said, "see if you can find the control center. Give me a look at their layout."

The camera angle shifted and rose, a glass-shielded room on the top floor coming into view seconds later as Beast Boy flew toward it. When he got halfway there, the camera jolted about and shook hard, too hard for them to see anything.

"Beast Boy?" Robin asked with a concerned note. "What's going on?"

Finally, the camera steadied, and a few seconds later, the whole team understood why BB had freaked out. Inside the control room, standing tall with crossed arms, flanked by two heavily armed TYGER guards…was Slade. Or, at least, Robin _thought_ that was Slade. He hadn't seen him for nearly a year, so the new suit was certainly unexpected. Instead of the usual black and gray color scheme with the gold half of his faceplate, this suit was entirely black and steel gray, even the faceplate. It also looked a bit more teched-out than before, with slightly glowing plates around his forearms and several pieces of ballistic weaponry attached to his armor.

On his back sat a single short sword, which looked more like a slightly curved machete. Overall, his new look was both more brutish and more imposing than before—if that was even _possible_. Robin suppressed a shudder even as he felt a firm yet soft grip land on his shoulder. Letting out a hard breath, he reached back to take Star's hand in his, his breathing evening out after a moment or two.

"Pull back," he said suddenly. "If Slade spots you, you'll be dead before you can say 'kamikaze.'"

Beast Boy obeyed instantly, making for the exit as Robin closed down the feed and stood up.

"Well…he did say we'd eventually be at it again." Robin looked toward Rev. "Any ideas why he's here?"

The speedster frowned and shook his head, expression darkening. "None whatsoever. What I know about Slade pertains mostly to his identity and history, not his current motivations. But, from what I _do_ know about history, which is a lot, it's either something destructive or a ploy to get to _you_ somehow." He motioned to Robin.

Starfire half-scowled (well, as much as that girl _could_ scowl) and crossed her arms. "How typical of him."

"Regardless," Robin interrupted, "we need to get in there and find the uranium. Chances are we won't be able to take out all the guards, so a precision stealth strike is our best option."

Beast Boy materialized next to the team and took a few heavy breaths as Robin powered his gauntlet up again and knelt.

"We'll split into three teams. Cyborg, you and Raven scan the perimeter for a back door. In a facility this big, with this much important tech, there's bound to be a secondary entrance somewhere. If you can, break in without setting off any alarms. If you can't do it undetected, back off and await orders. Starfire, you're with Beast Boy. Fly up to the roof and quietly take out any guards on overwatch. Make sure they can't see us coming. Rev, you're with me. As soon as Star and Beast Boy are done, we'll approach on the ground from two directions, taking out guards as we go.

"I'll have my belt emit a localized EMP to jam their communications, but you'll need to take out those turrets before they can fire a shot, otherwise we're blown. Think you can move faster than they can fire?"

He frowned and shrugged. "I guess we'll find out. Either way, we need in."

Robin nodded. "If all else fails, Raven and White Revenant will phase into the building and look for the uranium. If you run into Slade, do _not_ engage. The last thing we need is him getting a hostage…or killing one of you." He took a moment to breathe and exchange looks with the team. "Everyone clear on the plan?"

They all nodded.

"Well then." He stood and turned to face the building. "Titans, go!"

…

An orange hand clapped over the mouth of a TYGER guard and yanked him away from the edge of the building's roof as a green chimpanzee yanked another two out of the light and repeatedly hammered on their heads until they were rendered unconscious. In short time, two orange and green blurs disposed of a half-dozen highly trained snipers without nary a whisper from any of them before falling unconscious. Star gave Robin a smile and a thumbs-up as soon as the last one hit the deck, prompting a single push of a button on the latter's belt. The floodlights and radios down below all sparked and fried at once, but as Robin had expected, the turrets flanking either side of the door stayed active.

The only light sources Star could see were a dozen streaks of silver lightning, which prompted a rapid flurry of movement and action from the TYGER guards below. A half-dozen automatic rifles cocked at once, and the turrets activated targeting lasers built into the sides of their chasses. Starfire's hands glowed a bright green when they started to spin up, and her eyes widened when the silver streaks sped past all the guards in half a blink's time to mount the upper catwalk and flash across the deck, toppling the two snipers and causing small pillars of smoke to rise from the turrets.

"Dude," BB whispered loudly, "what did he _do_?"

"I suppose we'll find out soon enough," Starfire replied, wincing as she caught a flash of Robin's brightly-attired form delivering a devastating falling elbow to one of the perimeter guards.

The speedster and his highly-trained backup made short work of the mercs, Rev managing to disarm two thirds of them while Robin knocked out the rest without being seen once. None of them managed to pull off a single shot, making the Titans' incursion entirely undetected. For now.

"Hey Rob, Cyborg here."

"Robin here. What do you have?"

"Backdoor, just like you said. Took down a couple of guards gettin' to it. Security's tight, but it's not Apokoliptan."

"I hear a story behind _that_ one," Rev said curiously.

Star heard a smirk in Cyborg's reply. "Man, you got no idea."

"Later," Robin interrupted gently. "Cyborg, Raven; breach the rear entrance. Beast Boy, go with them. Star, you form up with us. We'll hit this place from both sides. Hopefully overwhelm their security."

"On our way," Starfire replied.

She took off a second later, flying in a graceful arc down to the front door, where Robin was already getting to work on the electronic keypad. Rev had his arms crossed and was tapping his right foot impatiently with a frown on his face. Robin had a frown too, though his was a frown of concentration.

"Would you _stop_ that?" Robin asked Luke irritably.

The speedster just rolled his gray eyes, made almost black in the low lighting. "There _is_ an easier way to get in."

Robin shot him a look. "You saying I can't do this?"

For the first time Starfire could remember, Lucas actually glared, his voice reaching a dangerously low tone. "We don't have time to waste on your ego, Robin, especially if Deathstroke is involved."

Robin's lensed eyes narrowed at him as he stood up.

Starfire gave Rev a curious look. "Deathstroke?"

"An alias of Slade's," Robin answered, "back when he was a gun for hire. Deathstroke the Terminator."

"History lesson later," Rev practically hissed with a slight snarl on his visible features. He grabbed both of their arms. "Fight now."

With no warning or preamble, all three of them began vibrating simultaneously, causing an uncomfortable "whoa" from Robin and a surprised giggle from Starfire. He gently yanked them both forward and through the solid steel door with no resistance, releasing them once he verified their entire bodies were safely on the other side, then swiping his palms across each other.

"What was that all about?" Robin asked, half-irritated, half-concerned.

Rev came to an abrupt stop mid-step, frowning back at Robin over his shoulder. "If you know Slade as well as I do, you'll know he already knows we're here. Whatever his plan is, it's only a matter of time before he springs the inevitable trap, so if you don't mind, I'd like to get all that unpleasantness over with as soon as possible."

Robin's eyes narrowed as they cautiously proceeded deeper into the building. "What is your problem? And why do I feel like you hate Slade even more than I do?"

Rev stopped just behind a door and sighed, one arm braced against the frame. "I don't hate him. I just…understand him."

Robin snorted. "Right. You, someone who hasn't even been in the game for three full months, understand him? I've known Slade for almost four years now, and _I_ still don't understand him."

Luke let out a bitter laugh as he slid the door open and checked the inside. "You've _fought_ him for four years, tried to understand his motivations as a villain."

"So?"

"So there's a difference between analyzing someone and knowing them."

Robin arched an eyebrow. "And you 'know' him? How?"

The Revenant let out another caustic laugh and looked back at the couple with a strange, unsettling look in his eyes. "I wasn't always a superhero."

Starfire's expression was slightly wide-eyed and overall perturbed. In the corner of her eye, she could see Robin's right hand twitch toward his belt—and more specifically, the pouch she knew from experience contained what could be considered…questionably forceful implements. Possibly even lethal. Rev noticed too, and his masked expression shifted to something that could only be described as haunted. He smiled a little, a sad note to the gesture, and faced forward once more, letting out a long, audible breath as he strode through the door and into the room beyond.

Starfire exchanged a wary look with her boyfriend, who frowned deeply and cautiously followed him through.

"What did you mean by that?" Starfire asked softly.

Rev sighed and opened his mouth, then stopped, no sound coming.

"Rev—"

"Quiet. You hear that?"

Starfire listened closely, a quiet whirring reaching her ears as tension filled the air. She floated a few feet into the air and powered up, eyes and hands glowing as she scanned the large open room beyond the small stretch of hallway they had left. From the side, Star could see White Revenant's eyes narrow and dance with silver lightning. He took off like a bolt of lightning, entering the larger room a split-second before gunfire rang out and traced his steps in deadly arcs. Robin broke into a sprint as Star followed, but they both came to an abrupt stop with Rev's voice.

"Stay out of sight," he hissed through their comlink.

"You don't give the orders here," Robin half-growled.

"It's not an order, just a strong suggestion—" a grunt of effort, "—unless you _really_ want to deal with a bunch of pawns while the king enacts his evil plan."

Robin's lips pursed as Rev's blurred form streaked past, the sounds of dozens of shell casings hitting the floor echoing throughout the chamber.

"I'll keep these yokels busy. Find Deathstroke. Get that uranium back." A short pause as the crack of a high-speed punch sounded. "Be the hero."

Robin's lensed eyes narrowed, but he nodded to Starfire, who flew up into the room and opened fire with her starbolts. She threw the Boy Wonder a quick glance as he stole across the open space to the other side and vanished from sight moments later.

"What are you _doing_?!" Rev yelled in her direction, coming to a stop behind cover as a hailstorm of bullets assaulted the metal crate he hid behind.

Starfire just floated in place and smiled sweetly, bullets harmlessly pinging off her orange skin. "Better two distractions than one, yes?"

"Robin can't take Slade on his own."

"I won't have to," Robin replied over comlink. "Just met up with Raven. Cyborg and Beast Boy are off looking for the uranium. She and I will handle Slade. Just keep doing what you're doing."

"Yes," Star replied with somewhat dark amusement, "we do seem to have their attention."

Rev smirked and shot her a look. "Seems like bad form to leave them hanging," he said as more TYGER guards sprinted into the room running and gunning. "Why don't we put on a show?"

The speedster took off and sprinted around the room in circles as Starfire spotted a squad of TYGER guards raising unfamiliar weapons and a few familiar ones. One in particular caught her eye, and she glared at the man holding it as blazing green beams came from her eyes and sliced the cluster missile launcher in two. Two more men rushed up and raised weapons at her, lances of scarlet energy streaking toward her with deadly intent. A twist of her body midair sent them flying past harmlessly, the Tamaranean's eyes and hands glowing with righteous fury as she bared her teeth and threw starbolts in their direction.

The squad was scattered by the explosive force of the bolts' impacts, but two with unfamiliar weapons managed to recover with rolls and realign their sights on her. Both pulled the triggers on their prototype weapons and repeatedly fired on her. The alien princess managed to corkscrew around their shots and returned fire, but the moment she tried to counter after a rapid dodge, the other sharpshooter got a solid lead on her and fired a single shot that impacted solidly. The girl shrieked as the beam bombarded her cells with energy, her lack of movement allowing the other guard to do the same with his weapon from another angle, Starfire putting both her arms up in an X in an attempt to allay some of the damage.

Glancing down, she spotted Rev in a similar predicament, trying to outrun fire from almost two dozen sources and unable to help her. Pain spread to almost every nerve in her body, waking torture heralding massive damage…but she'd endured worse from the Gordanians. As fury build in her blood, she noticed something else, a byproduct hidden in the beams currently bathing her in energy—ultraviolet radiation. A feral grin came to her features as she let the radiation wash over her, filling her veins with more and more power until she felt as if she were about to burst.

And then she shot upward like a bullet, instantly escaping the press of the beams and flying through the air to punch out both sharpshooters and fly into the center of the room.

"Friend Rev, find cover and shield your eyes!"

Starfire's eyes flashed with green as her entire body began to glow with energy. Her hands and eyes flared brightly, the light shining off her orange body increasing by the second as bullets pinged off her figure by the dozen. Missiles streaked toward her as her energy reached a fever pitch, a furious yell coming from her chest as she splayed her limbs out in all directions, the surface of her skin igniting with the light of a supernova and lasting for a few moments as all the excess energy was expended.

Finally, she powered down to her normal state, eyes dimming to their usual green as she surveyed the situation below. Over two dozen TYGER guards were either unconscious or groaning as they rubbed their temporarily blinded eyes. A moment later, a white-and-gray streak barreled into them all one by one until they all lay on the ground, out cold. White Revenant came to a stop once he was finished, giving the room a final once-over before grinning up at a smirking Starfire and giving her a thumbs-up.

"Nicely done, princess."

She smiled wider as she descended to Rev's catwalk perch. "And you as well. Let us hope Robin and the others are having as much luck."

"Roger that."

They both sped off deeper into the facility at that, on the ground and in the air, the moment a massive rumble reverberated throughout the building.

…

Robin and Raven came to an abrupt stop just as they reached the factory floor, turning toward the west section of the warehouse.

Robin put an index to his earpiece. "Guys, what was that?"

"Sorry," Cyborg answered a few seconds later. "Had to pull out the graviton cannon. Some idiot decided to jump in one of those exosuits, so I put that down right quick. Last thing we need is an unstable xenothium cannon cuttin' through a wall and lighting up a stack of uranium."

Raven's eyes narrowed. "Speaking of, if they have the xenothium to power those suits, why would they have needed the cache from S.T.A.R. Labs?"

"I don't know," Robin answered grimly. "I don't like not knowing."

"Then allow me to ease your pain."

Both Titans froze in place, then slowly turned forward to see Slade standing opposite them, hands loose at his sides.

"Hidden in this facility, right under your noses, is a device of such design and magnitude, it will, if activated, make your home city look like Nagasaki in 1945." Slade took a step toward the pair, tucking both arms behind his back. "Unless, of course, you're willing to surrender."

Robin's lensed eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing. The uranium taken from the power plant wasn't enough to power a bomb that big, and you haven't had nearly enough time to assemble it anyhow."

Slade chuckled darkly. "Oh, Robin, you should know better by now." His one visible eye narrowed. "I always have a plan."

Robin watched Slade carefully as he started pacing.

 _Something's off…his voice keeps crackling, like something's wrong with his helmet's vocalizer._

"The device is an amalgam of parts from various sources, all combined to form one machine of yield far greater than the sum of its parts."

The heroes greeted him with silence, and Slade's visible eye narrowed.

"Do you really want to risk the possibility that I'm telling the truth, just to salve your own pride?"

"Even if this device _does_ exist," Robin answered, "this warehouse is all the way on the edge of the city. Set it off here, you won't do nearly as much damage as you could. That would require movement of the bomb further into Jump—" his eyes narrowed, "—and that's _not_ going to happen."

"Robin, what would be the point in annihilating an entire city?"

A cold feeling crept down Robin's spine as Slade paced.

"Tell me, what is the easiest way to demoralize a hero?"

Silence as Slade came to a stop and faced them.

"To let his protectorates see just how useless he is. Upon detonation, thousands in this city will burn, and whatever's left will remember that the rest of their days. From the moment they see that fireball consume half of their home, they will no longer look at your island, at the symbol of your home, and see hope. They'll see destruction, a team of children—powerful children, but children nonetheless—who let their city die. If you survive, that is. Wouldn't be much point if you're not there to see it."

Robin's jaw clenched as he bared his teeth. "To think I ever found myself on your side."

Slade slowly paced toward them. "It was a momentary alignment of interests, nothing more. I promised you I'd be back…"

"And you always keep your promises." Robin reached to the back of his belt and extended his collapsible bo staff. "Well so do I. And I swore to defend this city, no matter the cost."

Slade shook his head with an air of disappointment. "Always so predictable." He sighed. "As you wish. It's been too long since our last sparring session anyhow." His neck cracked as he picked up his pace toward the heroes.

"I'm not alone _this_ time."

"Is that right?"

Robin half-crouched, bracing to charge as Raven took to the air, dark energy glowing in her hands. The sounds of a dozen weapons cocking came from above, and both heroes shifted their gazes to see TYGER guards aiming at them. A moment of silent tension passed before Robin's hand dipped to his belt, an explosive disc streaking toward the guards' catwalk perch and rupturing the metal in a deafening explosion.

"Raven, take them out! I'll keep Slade busy until you're done!"

The sorceress frowned, but nodded and flew off, gunfire sounding in her wake as Robin turned toward Slade. A furious yell came from Dick's throat as he charged in headlong, swinging at Slade with several rapid swipes that were dodged with practiced ease, the last avoided with a backward roll. As Slade rolled to his feet, his right hand went up and drew the sword from his back, spinning it several times before pointing it at Robin, handle braced at his side. Dick's masked eyes narrowed.

 _Something's off. His movements are calculated but sluggish, like he's not used to field work anymore…which is_ impossible _._

No matter the case, Slade was in his way and threatening the city. Robin's metal bo came in with several thrusts, deflected with Slade's sword several times before the villain counterattacked with an upward swipe. Wind audibly flew off the edge of his blade as Robin pulled back just enough to dodge, then charged back in to exploit a gap and stick a ceramic-plated boot into Slade's gut. He grunted hard and rolled away from a bo swipe, running for a nearby staircase and bounding up it, reaching the topmost floor in seconds. Robin collapsed his bo and fired his grapnel at the upper catwalk, reeling himself up only to twirl his body away from a sword swipe by Slade.

He landed in a crouch and threw his arms up as a downward slash from Slade impacted his armored gauntlets, grinding against the plating as he skidded back a couple of feet with the force. Robin yelled and snapped his left arm up and out, knocking the blade away, then coming back in with a flurry of chained punches to Slade's midsection, the combo finishing with a massive hook to the side of his head. Robin grunted as Slade replied with a punishing elbow to his face, feeling blood trickle down his cheek as his right eyebrow was split. He withdrew quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid a sword swipe to his side. Though his armor was generally considered bulletproof, Slade's weapon cut through like it was tissue paper.

Robin leapt backward into a handspring, pressing a hand to his side to stem the flow of blood. It wasn't a critical injury, just annoying and—of _course_ —Slade found the exact spot to hit where the armor would be weakest, a seam between two Kevlar plates. Robin's bo extended as he and Slade paced around each other. Robin moved first, two blows to his shoulder and side deflected before Slade countered with a horizontal swipe at his neck, which was ducked. Robin jabbed the tip of his bo into Slade's gut, then dropped into a crouch when he was cut at again and grappled with his right leg.

His weight shifted as he twisted and dashed past, taking Slade off-balance and dumping him on the ground back-first. The villain rolled upright and reached for his sword, but Robin kicked it away and planted a boot in his face. Grunting and growling, Slade charged back in with several rapid punches, but Robin had little difficulty avoiding and countering his movements.

 _I don't believe this,_ he thought between blows. _Either I've gotten a_ lot _better in the last year, or Slade's been slacking off._ His eyes narrowed. _Or maybe…_

Slade withdrew and yanked a pistol from his side holster, the weapon discharging once as Robin kicked it from his hand and followed with a twist-kick to his chest. A bolt of dark energy lanced into him from behind, knocking him face-down. Slade rolled away from the next shot, actually managing to backhand Robin as he leapt for him with a flying kick, then yank Robin's grapnel from his belt and fire it at an upper rafter. He reeled himself halfway upward before swinging forward—right toward Raven.

The sorceress fired at him several times, managing to slam him with the third shot and plant him on the catwalk back-first. She descended to his level as Robin pinned him to the ground by his neck, bo pressed firmly against his larynx. Slade wasn't even struggling—quite uncharacteristic, as Robin mentally noted. His masked eyes narrowed as he reached for Slade's mask, yanking it off to reveal—

"Wintergreen?!"

"That's _Bill_ Wintergreen to you, boy," the much older man replied with a reprimanding tone.

"But…you're not Slade."

"Never said I was," he said with a slight smirk, then looked over at Raven. "Tell me, dear, how do you feel?"

Raven's breathing was becoming more and more shallow by the second, and she started to list from side to side as Robin looked on in alarm. When her violet eyes rolled up into her head and she started to fall, Robin lunged for her, but stopped when a white blur caught her halfway down and laid her gently on the catwalk floor, Starfire touching down next to her a moment later. The Tamaranean girl inspected her friend carefully for a few moments before turning toward Wintergreen with a snarl.

"What have you done?" she demanded, hands glowing.

"Hey, look," Rev said as he pulled something thin and small from Raven's arm. He tossed it to Robin.

"Some kind of dart," the Titan leader remarked. "What did you dose her with?"

"Relax, Robin," said Wintergreen, who somehow looked several years younger than when they'd seen him last. "It's merely a tranquilizing agent, nothing with permanent effects. She'll be sleeping like a baby for the better part of a day, however."

"Why?" Robin demanded. "Why take _her_ out of the equation? Why her specifically?"

Wintergreen just smiled enigmatically, then moved his free hand in a flash and jabbed a dart into the side of his neck. His eyes rolled back a moment later, and his breathing deepened in unconsciousness.

Robin yanked the dart out and frowned. "Another tranquilizer. But why?"

Their communicators clicked, and Cyborg's voice came through. "I think I just figured out." His tone was _not_ a good sign. "Rob, you and the others better get here, and fast."

Tensely, he ordered White Revenant to stay with Raven and Wintergreen, the rest moving toward Cyborg and Beast Boy's location. When they arrived, the reason for his dire tone became glaringly apparent. On a crate, sitting in a half-unzipped duffel bag, was a briefcase-sized metal cylinder—with a ticking timer.

Robin gave their resident tech expert a glance. "Cyborg?"

His head shook slowly. "It doesn't look good. Whoever built this thing knew what they were doing. Internal wiring, false leads, anti-tampering mechanisms…you name a safeguard to prevent deactivation, and this thing's got it. No way I can work around 'em, not in the time we got."

Robin frowned. "Options?"

Cyborg's head shook slowly. "Containment's impossible, given the materials I'm pickin' up inside this thing's detonation core. It's not _just_ the uranium. It's some kind of power flux generator and…a whole lot of heavily purified xenothium."

Robin locked gazes with Cyborg. "Wait, are you saying—"

"That's _exactly_ what I'm sayin'. I dunno how, but somehow, a slice of the xenothium from S.T.A.R. Labs got into Wintergreen's hands."

"We can discuss how this happened later," Starfire said. "For now, we must find a way to prevent Jump City's destruction."

Cyborg's head shook slowly. "Only way I can think of is transportation, but without Raven to teleport it out…"

Beast Boy's eyes widened in horror. "Dude, that's why he knocked her out!"

"He didn't want Raven to send it off," Robin growled, slamming his fist on the top of the crate. "I should've seen this."

"Friends, there is no point in quibbling about missed mistakes."

They all turned to the bomb, watching as the timer ticked down to just over a minute and a half.

"I will fly it out."

Robin turned to Starfire along with the rest, near-panic in his eyes. "Star—"

"I am the only one fast enough to get it away from the city in time. Away from you."

"But you won't be fast enough to get _yourself_ away from _it_."

"I _must_ try."

"Starfire—"

She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him as she smiled. "This is why I became a Titan, Robin."

Robin stared at her for another moment, then pulled her into a fierce kiss, releasing her a moment later. "You toss that thing in the ocean, then get the hell out of here, you hear me?"

The alien nodded. "I will be back before you know it."

"Uh, guys?" Beast Boy asked. "Hate to break up the heartfelt goodbye and all, but…where's the bomb?"

Immediately after he finished asking this, a massive crack of thunder sounded in the distance.

Robin's eyes widened as he sprinted toward a nearby exit, the conscious members of the team joining him in a guard tower overlooking the water. "No," he breathed, opening his holographic map.

As his gauntlet tracked the movement of a distant red dot, his eyes traced a trail of disturbed waters…and the distant silver lightning at its head.

…

White and gray-clad legs moved at blinding speed as waters parted in Luke's wake, a furious determination in his gray eyes as the rising sun at his back lit the way. Another burst of speed sent him flying forward as his teeth clenched, body pushing itself past all limits. The city was getting smaller and smaller by the second, but he just knew it wouldn't be enough. Not yet. Silver lightning erupted in his eyes as he let out a growl of determination and effort, his body putting on an additional burst of acceleration as the world around him, save for his immediate forward, started to fade to an indistinct gray blur.

With a yell of exertion, he drew back his right arm and swung for all he was worth, the bomb flying another half mile into the ocean as he arced back toward Jump City. Unknown to him, the timer on the bomb had ticked down to around ten seconds by the time he released it, but he ran for everything he was worth all the same. Ten long, nerve-wracking seconds passed as Luke sprinted away from certain death.

And then the sea boiled, the waters parted, and the air erupted in a blinding fireball that left a massive mushroom cloud in its wake. The force and heat boiled away miles upon miles of water, rolling a fiery death toward anything in its range. All the while, a white-and-gray speedster kept moving, sprinting, trying to outrun death itself. He could feel it—the heat of the fire, the force threatening to topple him over and lay him out on the water, helpless to avoid being incinerated by a monstrosity of science and engineering.

But he kept moving as a furious roar of determination built in his chest and released a moment later, silver lightning streaming from every inch of his body. A final burst of speed lit up his legs like fire as the blinding light of both the sun and explosion engulfed every inch of his vision. And then a sudden wave of force knocked him off his feet, and he tumbled into the water at over 1500 miles an hour.

The moment his head went below the surface, he was out.

…

Unknown to Rev, even as he was running out to toss the bomb into the ocean, another figure had flown after him, also breaking the sound barrier just seconds into her flight. When the bomb went off, she hadn't traversed _half_ the distance he did, so when he tripped during his run and fell beneath the waves just outside the blast radius, Starfire saw it all and didn't hesitate. She was under the water in a second, and the next she was out with an unconscious speedster in her arms, flying back toward the shore. The alien princess touched down on the shoreline minutes later, finding the Titans and an unconscious Wintergreen waiting for her.

She gently laid Rev on the pavement, physically tearing off his mask as she listened for signs of life. Alarm filled her features before she looked up at Robin.

"He is not breathing!"

"Yo, stand back," Beast Boy ordered, turning into a strange-looking snake a moment later.

The Titans wondered at his choice of animal until his entire body began to inflate, one orifice pressing against Rev's mouth while Robin pinched his nostrils shut, then deflating as Luke's chest rose with the action. In the next heartbeat, Cyborg had administered a small electric shock to Rev's heart, and with a massive cough and bodily thrash, he regained consciousness. Starfire held his arms to steady and calm him down, smiling down at him warmly as he let out several heavy breaths. When his gray eyes finally focused, they flitted from one teammate to the next, blinking rapidly.

Slowly but surely, Star and Robin helped him sit upright, and the young speedster looked toward the western horizon and the fiery mushroom cloud rolling in the distance. His eyes widened in alarm, and he grabbed Robin's forearm.

"The bomb—there's no telling how much radiation I was exposed to—"

"Dude, you're good," Cyborg interrupted.

Lucas looked up at him with wide eyes. "Running in the shadow of a nuclear explosion doesn't usually classify as 'good,' Cyborg."

He shrugged. "No, but in this case, unless my internal Geiger counter is malfunctioning, you're all clean."

The speedster's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Not yet. I did a full spectrographic scan of the bomb before you ran off with it, but it'll take some time to sort through all the data."

"That can wait," Robin interrupted. He turned to the speedster. "What you did was…"

Luke arched a black eyebrow curiously.

"…stupid."

Lucas stared at him blankly.

"So…incredibly stupid." He put a gloved hand on Rev's shoulder, smiling a little. "And by far one of the bravest, most selfless things I've ever seen."

The speedster blinked slowly, methodically, then shook his head slightly. "So…so what you're saying is…"

They all looked at him expectantly.

"I'm _not_ fired?"

A moment of silence passed before they all busted out laughing. Before he knew it, Luke was laughing too, actually holding his aching sides to prevent from falling over as relieved, hysterical laughter filled the still dawn air. It took them almost a full minute to calm down enough for coherent speech, and then Robin slapped a hand on Luke's shoulder.

"No, Rev." He took a deep breath, exchanging knowing looks with the rest of the team's conscious members. "You just made the team."

Lucas blinked hard as the shoreline fell silent, jaw hanging limply, halfway open. A stupid, gleeful grin was plastered to his face a moment before his eyes rolled back into his head, and he slowly fell backwards onto the pavement.

Beast Boy was vainly repressing giggles, and Robin just sighed and shook his head as Starfire grinned and let him hold her protectively.

"Hey guys," BB said between laughs.

"Hm?" Robin asked, the conscious Titans turning to him.

"Wait 'til Raven finds out."

And with that, the non-green members of the team blanched.

* * *

AN: Another bout of writer's block and a ton of work later, I got another chapter for you. Hoping to tie up this arc in the next chapter or so. Ton of unanswered questions so far, I know, but that's all going to be answered next chapter. Nothing much else to say here, except that the White Revenant's levels of sheer power will make sense eventually. I haven't decided whether to explore that particular arc before or after the main climax of the story, but again, probably going to be in the distant future.

On a side note, I first came up with the idea for White Revenant when I was creating a speedster character for DC Universe Online. Tried to come up with a story that fit the name. Interested to see how you all respond to what I came up with.

Please review at your leisure and stay tuned for more updates in the future.

 _Oya, vode._

\- CDrake


	5. Conspiracy, Part III

_Beep._

 _Beep._

 _Beep-beep._

 _Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—_

Gray eyes snapped open with a start, the attached body breathing in sharply as his vision slowly cleared. A few rapid blinks later, and several white foam panels came into view, the panels encased in a grid-like skeleton of metal. As the rhythmic beeping at his right and his rate of lung inflation began to slow to a more normal rate, he slowly looked away from the ceiling and observed the unfamiliar room around him. Dark gray eyes narrowed slightly. Lucas Carlisle had been to a lot of hospitals; this didn't look like any one he'd visited. When a nearby door slid open on its own, he understood why.

A slow gulp as he tried to loosen his dry tongue. "How long was I out?"

Robin smirked as he and the entire team except Raven and Beast Boy gathered around his bed. "Just over nine hours. Took quite the hit when you smacked into the water."

Luke brought a hand up to his forehead, wincing when he felt the bruise and frowning a little when he caught his reflection in a glass pane. "Concussion?"

"Pretty major one, yeah," Cyborg answered. "But true to your speedster physiology, it's just about healed by now. No permanent damage, far as I can tell. Can you remember everything that happened?"

Lucas nodded slowly. "I tossed a nuke into the Pacific Ocean and narrowly escaped getting caught in the explosion." He frowned. "And apparently didn't pick up any residual radiation."

"Yeah," Cy responded, "I did some analysis on the bomb components while you were out." A holographic screen projected from his left arm. "Something in the xenothium neutralized the radiological component of the bomb upon detonation." His head shook slowly. "To think something as unstable as xenothium could actually _prevent_ damage? So much we still don't know."

"And not just about the bomb components themselves," Robin added with a frown. "But where Wintergreen got them from."

Luke gave them an uncertain look. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Xenothium, uranium, a WayneTech energy amplifier. Except for the uranium, you know what those components have in common?"

The speedster screwed up his face for a second before groaning and shaking his head slowly. "Still have a bit of a concussion, so you'll have to excuse me for not getting this right away."

Robin's lips twitched upward in understanding before returning to a frown. "They were all supposed to be in police custody prior to the bomb's construction. You dropped off the amplifier yourself, and when we recovered Mr. Twister's exosuit, it turned out he hadn't tossed _all_ of the xenothium into that building. The rest was given to the police as evidence. It was supposed to have been returned to S.T.A.R. Labs two weeks ago, and the amplifier even earlier than that."

"So how did they get into Wintergreen's hands?"

"My question exactly." Robin crossed his arms. "I have a few theories. The most prominent—and most likely—involves a mole in the JCPD."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Greeeeeat." He laid his head back against the pillow and returned to staring at the ceiling. "One headache at a time, though, yeah?"

Starfire smiled. "Speaking of, I believe we have something to give you."

She turned to Robin, who smiled back and nodded, pulling something from his belt. He handed it to Luke without the speedster fully understanding what he was being given. It took a few seconds for him to recognize the thin, gold-colored cylinder in his hands. It wasn't until he saw the antenna and the giant white T emblazoned in a circular black background that his jaw dropped and the last bit of his previous memories—the ones that caused his unconscious state—finally came back to him. He looked from the communicator to Robin, to Cyborg, then back to Robin.

"So…so you weren't kidding?"

Robin arched a masked eyebrow. "Do I ever?"

A short, choked laugh came from Luke's throat. "Apparently not. And here I thought you were supposed to be the comic relief."

"I leave _that_ job to him and Beast Boy," he replied with a jabbed thumb at Cyborg. He shrugged and smirked. " _Someone_ has to be the responsible one."

Lucas smiled and nodded rather drowsily. "So…what now?"

"That depends. How do you feel?"

The speedster slowly sat up and slid his legs out to the side, planting his bare feet on the cold tiled floor and wincing. Cyborg slipped an IV from his arm and double-checked his vitals as Luke gave his shoulders a little swing.

"Other than some sore muscles and a recurring headache, fine. Don't know if that'll be the same once I start using my speed, but we'll see I guess."

Robin put a hand on his shoulder. "Well, take it easy, Luke. You'll have plenty of time to settle in when you're recovered."

Luke waved him off. "If I can stand, I can run, and the more I run, the faster I heal."

They gave him a confused look, Cyborg speaking up. "Hardly seems logical."

Lucas shrugged. "I dunno. My speed does weird things to my body. I guess it's kind of like exercise and the digestive metabolism of most people. The more you exercise and the better you eat, the better you digest the stuff you take in, and the lesser the chance of something going wrong."

"What did you have in mind?" Starfire asked.

"Just moving my stuff here, I guess."

"Do you require help?" she asked hopefully, hands clasped together.

He smiled at her enthusiasm and waved her off. "Nah, I'll be fine. There isn't that much to move."

"I assume you know your way back here," Robin said, "but you're gonna have to use the front door."

Luke smirked as he spotted his civilian clothes, left on the island the day before, and pulled them into a built-in stall. "I figured as much. Electrified walls, right?"

"It was a good idea," Cyborg admitted in a mutter.

He chuckled in reply, a sudden burst of light coming from the stall as he dressed in a matter of two seconds. The door opened a moment later, permitting him back into the room as he yanked the flaps of his leather jacket around his shoulders. His smile was answered with several glances at his head bruise and concerned looks.

Luke rolled his eyes in mild annoyance. "Not that I don't appreciate the mother hen treatment, but I'll be _fine_. I've been taking care of myself for the last three years, and some of that time was _without_ powers."

Robin gave him a look.

He waved him off. "I'll be _fine_ , ya mad brooding bastard. Be back before you know it." With one final smirk and a sloppy salute, he was gone.

…

Robin frowned and stared at the open door for a few moments before turning to his present teammates. "Where's Beast Boy? I would've thought he'd want to be here for this."

"He did," Starfire replied. "Last I saw, he was moving toward Raven's room."

Alarm swept through both male Titans.

"Are you kidding?" Cyborg asked. "Even if she _is_ passed out, goin' into Rae's room uninvited is a death sentence." He sighed. "I guess we should just be glad that she doesn't have any cameras in her room…and hope he doesn't leave anything out of place."

Robin arched an eyebrow. "You're not gonna try and stop him, Vic?"

He threw his hands up and walked out into the hallway. "If he hasn't learned his lesson after four years, chances are, he never will."

"But—"

"Gar's almost an adult now, Rob. Gotta learn to let 'im make his _own_ decisions."

Robin took a deep breath, then let it out hard as he nodded. Cyborg walked off somewhere, and Robin felt a presence behind him before a lithe arm was draped around his shoulders. He reached up with his left arm and felt strong fingers tightly interlace with his as he leaned his head back on Star's shoulder. His eyes closed for a few moments before he reached up and gently pulled his mask off, letting his blue eyes look up into her green ones unimpeded.

"How are you holding up, Kory?"

She smiled a little and stroked his black hair with her free hand. "I should be asking you that. Mere hours ago, it looked as if we'd part for the last time, and you feared as much. I could see it on your face."

His left hand's grip tightened around hers. "Not something I want to repeat," he muttered.

Koriand'r chuckled softly and tucked his head tighter against her neck. "We're heroes, Dick. As you humans say, 'There is nothing new under the sun.' What has happened before will happen again, more times than we can count. All we can do is ride out the storm and hope we come out the other side holding onto the ones we love."

Dick half-scowled as his jaw clenched, turning in her grip to hold the alien girl close and press his cheek against her collarbone. "I know," he said bitterly, sighing a moment later. "I know."

…

 _Okay…okay…done!_

Garfield Mark Logan, AKA Beast Boy, heaved a _massive_ sigh of relief as he set down a steaming hot kettle with a ginger touch. His normal clumsiness was noticeably absent today, in its place a rather uncharacteristic and severe focus driven by deep concern. Whatever Wintergreen had ladled into his tranquilizer darts, that stuff was potent, but not potent enough to keep their resident half-demon empath completely out for its duration. She'd woken up several times over the last nine hours, each time only slightly more coherent than the last. As such, no one was really sure whether she fully understood when Robin informed her of White Revenant's new and, presumably, permanent place on the team.

She'd simply nodded without a word, then dropped back off to sleep a few slow blinks later. Despite the fact that Cyborg had done a full-body workup on her while he left Luke to recover—examining vitals, toxicology, and even brainwaves—Gar couldn't shake the worry that nagged at him every second he wasn't distracting his mind. And considering his lack of sleep, sore muscles, and general exhaustion, that was saying something. He probably _should've_ gotten at least a brief nap sometime between examinations, but every time he was on the edge of dozing off, a brief flash of Raven's unconscious face always woke him right back up.

After the third attempt to catch some shut-eye, he'd just given up and settled for worrying over his goth teammate. When Cyborg had given her a clean bill of health, save for the mandatory twelve-hour nap to let the drugs filter out of her system, Beast Boy had volunteered to watch her. Vic had given him a strange look, then shaken his head and insisted that due to her aversion to hospitals, it would be better for her to wake up in the more familiar surroundings of her room. A vitals monitor had been implanted on her to ensure nothing happened to her while out of sight, but otherwise, Raven was pretty much left alone.

After she'd woken up again and stumbled into the hallway half-asleep, Gar had intercepted her listing form and caught her before she passed out again and hurt herself. She'd mumbled a quiet, subconscious "thank you" when he carried her back into her room and tucked her back under the rumpled sheets. He'd frowned then and walked off toward the common room, sitting pensively for a bit. When he thought about it, Gar found he did that a lot these days. After his last encounter with a depowered Terra, barely six months earlier, he'd become more than a bit quieter, and a great deal less obnoxious.

Sure, he still played pranks on the others and made _irrationally_ bad jokes and puns, but…he'd changed, and the other Titans had noticed. Raven no longer had to (constantly) warn him against angling his rambunctious behavior in her direction. Victor no longer had daily arguments about the value of meat over tofu. Robin actually started listening to him on missions. Of all his teammates, Starfire, or Kory, as they had recently taken to calling her, was probably the least affected by his change. The reason, of course, was her naturally glittery, optimistic personality.

Gar smirked as he wafted the steam rising from a ceramic cup into his nostrils. Good old Kory. Where would this family be without her? At the bottom of the bay, most likely. Between all the antics, hijinks, and general mayhem perpetrated in this town, both by villains and the Titans themselves, they'd all probably have gone insane by now if not for her firmly anchored persona. His ruminations were briefly disrupted when a gust of wind behind him sent the steam curling away from his sensitive nose, and he glanced back to catch a passing hint of silver lightning.

 _Must be movin' in. Dang, and I wanted to see the look on his face when he figured out it wasn't a dream._

BB snickered a little before tightening his hold around the steaming mug and moving toward Raven's room with methodical steps. Cyborg may have been linked into Rae's vitals, but since his initial feral transformation, Gar's senses had increased by several orders of magnitude, even in his default human form, and her room, normally quiet as a whisper, was emitting rustling and other signs of movement. With careful steps, he finally reached the door and knocked quietly, then tapping his right foot impatiently as he waited. Finally, the door slid open, and he turned back to see a very drowsy-looking, bleary-eyed Raven staring at him with a completely deadpan expression.

He stared back for a few moments, completely forgetting the reason he'd come over.

Finally, she blinked slowly, and said, "What?"

That managed to snap him out of his stupor, and with a brief clearing of his throat, BB raised the cup rather quickly, briefly losing his hold on one side—

And spilling half its contents on his gripping hand.

With several rather high-pitched yelps, he rebalanced the ceramic vessel and transferred it to his good hand, sucking in the fingers of the other to try and mitigate the pain. Raven was just staring at him with her violet eyes, blinking every so often until he stopped dancing in pain. Gar let out a small, nervous laugh, trying not to let his eyes flicker to the new stain on the carpet just inside her room, and held the cup up for her inspection—slowly this time. Her eyes kept staring at him, then dragged themselves down to the cup as she slowly reached for its handle. When he felt her grip solidify around the mug, Gar released it and watched as she slowly took a sip, though by the look on her face, more out of drowsiness than caution.

As the steaming hot liquid poured down her throat, her expression sharpened rather suddenly, shifting from just-woke-up to satisfaction to blatant surprise, all in the space of about a second. Gar shifted from one leg to the other nervously, still passively nursing his burnt hand. Her eyes eventually shifted back to him, her gaze seeming a bit more alert now. Slowly, one pale hand came off the cup and pointed at it.

" _You_ made this?" she asked hoarsely.

He nodded uncertainly, smiling just a little.

Raven looked down into the liquid, blinking twice, then back up at him. "You know how I take my tea?"

The green teenager chuckled and nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not _totally_ oblivious, you know. And I've known what it's like to be in and out of consciousness without any control. Figured you could use a little pick-me-up."

She looked back down to the tea, taking another long drag, as if she couldn't believe what her tastebuds were telling her, then turned back to him. "Gar…"

"Hm?"

Raven was silent for a few seconds, eyes drifting closed for a brief moment as she started to nod off, then snapping open with a small gasp as she forced herself awake. "Thanks."

Beast Boy just grinned toothily and gave her a small bow. "If you need anything else, just holler." He tapped one of his pointed ears rather dramatically. "I'll be hearin a flash." He snorted a laugh. "Get it?" He tugged on both his ears and grinned. "I'll be _hear_?"

Raven stared at him for a second, her surprised, grateful expression belatedly morphing into the familiar annoyance. A predictable eye-roll followed the predicted moment later, and she stepped back into her room as she reached for the door controls. "Goodbye, Garfield."

He snickered as the door slid closed, turning away and stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walked away. "Goodbye, Raven."

…

Four hours later, it was almost dusk, and both Lucas and Raven had yet to come out of their rooms. By Robin's estimation, by the time Beast Boy had returned from giving Raven half a mug of tea (surveillance cameras may not have been in Raven's room, but the hallway was fair game), all but two members of the team had been running without sleep for nearly twenty-four hours. As such, he, Gar, and Vic all took to their own rooms once they tied up any pressing matters, Robin quietly escorting Kory to his own as they fell asleep in each other's arms.

Normally, he wouldn't approve of the arrangement, at least not while all the others were here, but after what had almost happened just that morning…he needed her there, the reassurance of her warmth against his chest to let him know she was still there. He'd woken up about ten minutes ago, finding the alien girl still fast asleep. He'd smiled upon seeing her, red hair splayed over her pillow, mouth slightly—and adorably—hanging open. A gentle kiss had been pressed to her left temple before he'd left for the common room, grabbing and donning a mask on the way out.

Which is how he'd found Beast Boy and Cyborg bent over controllers at the TV, battling their way to victory with a new game. Letting the familiar, comforting drone of the speakers lull him into a peaceful trance-like state, Robin busied himself with making a pot of coffee, stopping halfway through when he heard a door slide open behind him. To his mild surprise, Luke strode out in his civvies, looking bleary-eyed and yawning.

"Morning," he mumbled, blinking hard, then squinting at the oven clock. "Or evening, I guess. Dusk?"

Robin smirked. "Sleep well?"

"Surprisingly, yeah. Thought my body would've had enough after nine hours, but…" he shrugged, "apparently not." He reached over and poured himself a cup of coffee, smirking a little. "Guess that's what happens when you try to outrun a nuclear explosion."

Robin absently noted that the game had been paused and nodded at Rev. "How did you know you _could_?"

Lucas chuckled and took a sip of his coffee, grinning once he gulped. "I didn't." The room fell silent for a moment as the speedster took another sip. "Just…one of those things, I guess. An impulsive move you make out of sheer desperation…or maybe it was just knowing that something _needed_ to get done," he shrugged, "and going for it." He returned to his coffee.

"Either way," Robin said, "that was pretty damn impressive."

He waved him off with a smile. "If you could've, you would've done the same thing."

"Yeah," Cyborg said with a frown as he and Gar walked over, "except Rob's been in the game for _years_. All of us have. We already _know_ the score."

Rev gave him a quizzical look.

"Guess what he's tryin' to say is, 'Why'd you just _go_ for it?'" Beast Boy added.

Lucas absently chewed his lower lip. "Because I had to."

Robin's masked eyes narrowed. "Why?"

He looked at him, blinking. "You're my team. You're all I've got."

"All you've got? No parents? No family?"

Luke shrugged. "No one to speak of, mostly…" he sighed and closed his eyes hard, wincing, "mostly because I can't remember them."

The Titans exchanged a look before Robin spoke up. "I think we should sit down for this. Something tells me this is gonna be a long story."

Lucas nodded and sighed hard. "Longer than you know."

"Does it have anything to do with why you know so much about Slade?" Cyborg asked.

Luke's gray eyes snapped to him, lips pressed into a thin line as he nodded slowly. "So…I guess I should start at the beginning."

"That would probably be best," Robin said. "Although, I think the rest of the team would want to be here for this."

He snorted a laugh. "You're probably right, but I'm sure you're recording every sound in this tower anyway, so really, they won't miss anything." He grinned at Robin, who shifted uncomfortably.

BB and Cyborg slowly turned to face their leader with skeptical expressions.

"Come on," he protested, "have a little faith. I'm not _that_ paranoid."

Dick made a mental note to move his audio records to the hidden server he used to access the Batcomputer.

"Anyway," Luke interrupted, "it all started about three years ago. My life, I mean…or, at least, what I can remember." His head shook quickly. "First memory that I have is waking up in an alley. It was dark, dirty; I had no idea where I was until I saw a sign for a local pawn dealer. Turned out I'd somehow ended up in Blüdhaven. No money, no ID, no phone. Nothing in my pockets but lint and a strange coin." He reached into a pocket of his jeans. "This coin."

He handed it to Robin, who inspected it for a few moments before speaking. "I don't recognize the design."

Lucas' head shook. "Neither do I. After three years of research, I'm not even sure it's from this _planet_."

BB arched a green eyebrow. "So you're an alien?"

He snorted. "No. The thought _had_ occurred to me, but after an…accident, the doctors at a local hospital had my blood tested for routine defects. Forty-six chromosomes, no contaminants, and no foreign DNA."

"Then how did—"

"Your guess is as good as mine, B. I just don't know."

Robin frowned. "You mentioned an accident."

Lucas' lips pursed. "Yeah. Um…kind of important, that was. About two, maybe three months after I woke up in that alley, I was out walking." He sighed. "It was nighttime, and I was stupid, walking around in Blüdhaven alone, but…without parents, a record, or even a birth certificate, I'd been tossed around the system for a while. I'd gotten tired of it, so I walked off one night when no one was paying attention, tried to clear my head, figure out my next move."

"Wait," Cy interrupted, "you said you didn't have anything on you at the time, and there's no record of you _anywhere_."

"Yeah?"

"So did you get your name from a foster parent or what?"

Luke frowned. "That's the confusing part. I can't remember _anything_ before that alley, but somehow, _somehow_ , I could remember facts about cities, math, English, sciences, and…even my own name." His head shook slowly. "Events…memories…nothing before that night is vivid, but I can remember words at times, phrases, right and wrong. They…crawl around in my head, like half-remembered dreams." He winced. "And every time I try to get more, my head just hurts, so I pretty much gave up on the past."

Robin frowned, but nodded. "Go on."

"So, I'm walking in a rough part of Blüdhaven—heh, 'rough' is a bit redundant—and I'm thinkin' hard, not paying attention. I try and cross what looks like an abandoned street, but…either the night or the rain or my mind was playin' tricks on me, because the next thing I know, I'm whirlin' around and staring down the headlights of a rapidly decelerating pick-up truck. Next instant, I'm bouncing off the hood and rolling to a stop, can't feel a thing except the blood that's leakin' out of my chest." He gulped hard. "So there I am, face-up on the wet pavement, thunder crackin' all around me, when suddenly, the rain just stops falling, somehow suspended midair, and I hear this…whirring noise"

Luke held a hand up next to his ear. "Like a bullet whizzing through the air, but bigger. So, I turn my head—only part of me I can still move, and…I stare…" he pointed one hand out in front of him, looking out into the distance, "at this…thing coming straight at me. Just a yellow blur, really, trailing red lightning. And right behind it is this red one, trailing gold. And they're right on top of each other, neck and neck. They were goin' so fast, it was a wonder I could even see 'em coming. By this point, I can feel myself slipping away, and considering no one even cares, I'm just like, meh, okay."

He sighed and narrowed his eyes. "And then _it_ happened. Somehow, between the numbness and the blood and passing out, I caught sight of them zipping past me. Can't turn my head in time, so I didn't see what happened, but I hear this…explosive whir, see a flash of blue light in the edge of my vision. Next thing I know, I can see some sort of…energy arcing from behind me, riding the rain all the way up into the clouds. Now, I'm thinking, 'Luke, you're in the middle of dying; this is just an hallucination,' but—damn if it wasn't pretty." His head shook rapidly. "Anyway, I'm staring up into the clouds and blackin' out when this _huge_ bolt of silver lightning comes down—" he smacked his chest, "—hits me right here."

His fingers snapped. "I'm out the next second. I wake up a couple days later, stuck in a hospital. Doctors, nurses, they can't figure out what happened, how I'm still alive. Hell, they're downright _scared_ of me, so when they leave me alone for a while to try and find my foster parents, I sneak out. Grab my clothes, smuggle myself out the back door. I'm too busy trying to get away to notice how slow everyone else is—that is, until I start running, and I see just how slow all the _cars_ are going compared to me. I look back, and what do I see but silver lightning riding my rear.

"It was…exhilarating, knowing I was going that fast. And…" he chuckled bitterly, "considering my luck so far, I thought it was just a dream, so…I just ran. Pushed myself. I wanted to enjoy as much as I could before I woke up, so I went faster and faster. So fast that I started to doubt that I could stop. I did. Forcibly." He winced, pain filling his eyes. "When I accidentally hit someone going over two hundred miles an hour."

Sharp intakes of breath came from the others at the table.

Luke shrugged, eyes glued to the tabletop. "I just clipped him, really, tried to arc off, but…" his head shook, "I ran right into him. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the hospital again, this time cuffed to the bed. Later, I found out that the kid I hit—he was about my age—had a spine so hyperextended that it permanently damaged the neural link between his brain and his lower half." His eyes filled with more than just pain. "One bad run, one mistake, and I put this kid in a wheelchair for life…" he shrugged, "if he ever wakes up, anyway."

"My God," Gar whispered. "But…you couldn't have known—"

"It was still my fault. I should've been more careful." He sighed hard, shaking his head and forcing himself forward. "But they couldn't pin it on me, so when I finally got free, I…abandoned my meta side. Tried to forget all about my speed. The dirty looks I kept getting at school made _that_ virtually impossible. I don't think they even knew about my powers…just that I was responsible for what happened to Quint."

Robin arched an eyebrow. "Quint?"

He nodded slowly. "Theodore Quint. That was the kid's name." Another sigh. "After…is when everything went FUBAR."

"Why?"

Lucas looked up at Robin. "Because Deathstroke found me."

Universal frowns hit the entire group.

"Didn't take much to capture me. I wasn't exactly the fighting type. He locked me in a facility for the better part of three months, only letting me out of my cell to run me through some insane 'training course.' I tried to refuse, but, as you all know," he smirked bitterly, "Slade can be very persuasive when he wants to be. So I played his game, got faster, smarter, stronger. And then I started wondering…maybe remembering something. Something I knew before Bludhaven." He started vibrating his hands. "Speed phasing. He'd never tried to teach me that aspect of my powers. Mostly just increasing my mobility and confidence.

"When I _did_ figure it out, I didn't hesitate in running my ass off. I tried to go back home, tried to settle back into a normal life, but…he found me again, so I left Blüdhaven behind, kept running. I'd heard about the Teen Titans and how they'd come into conflict with him time and again, but not even _you_ had managed to beat him permanently. I needed to be safe, and for that, he either needed to be gone, or I needed constant protection." He smiled. "Who do you guys protect more constantly than one of your own?"

Robin let out a long breath as it all started to click into place, his head shaking slowly. "Why didn't you tell us all of this earlier?"

He snorted. "Would you have _believed_ me? Just take the fact that I _accidentally_ turned a helpless teenager into both a paraplegic _and_ a comatose patient in a single blow, and you've got a pretty damning case against me. That's _without_ my unknown past, the amnesia, random memories I can't make any sense of…" Luke sighed hard. "Face facts, Robin. If you and the others hadn't had time to get to know me before knowing all the facts, you'd have kicked me out the first day we met."

Cyborg frowned. "You might be surprised."

Lucas shrugged. "Yeah, maybe you're right." He cast them all glances. "But I couldn't afford to take that chance." He was silent a few moments, then smirked. "And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: the unmasking of Deathstroke." Lucas took a long breath as he felt three pairs of eyes lock onto him. "His real name…is Slade Joseph Wilson. Former U.S. Army; he met Billy Wintergreen during his time overseas. Eventually, he underwent an experimental process that boosted the production of his adrenal gland, among other things.

"As a result, he gained control of over ninety percent of his brainpower, increased strength, speed, and agility; and the ability to regenerate almost any injury to completion. I don't know why he hates the Titans, or why he's fixated on you in particular, but he is brilliant, ruthless, and he _will not_ hesitate to kill anyone who stands in his way." Luke smirked. "But then, you already knew that, didn't you?"

Robin gave him a long, searching look, then stood up and started pacing. "You said you trained with Slade for only three months. I doubt he would've revealed his identity to you in that time."

An unreadable look crossed Lucas' face as he slowly pushed himself upright and strode toward the mouth of one of the hallways. "That's the funny bit." He turned to face them, expression frighteningly neutral. "He didn't. And…truth be told, I lied."

Robin's right hand twitched toward his belt as he felt a cold vise grip wrap around his spine. "What are you talking ab—"

"When I said that I escaped when he found me again. I lied." His gray eyes narrowed. "And I'm telling everything I know about Deathstroke because, well…"

"Because you're not going to live long enough to tell anyone else."

Robin—and every Titan in the room save for Luke—froze, slowly turning toward the stairwell door with horrified looks on their faces. The Boy Wonder's jaw slowly clenched more and more as the familiar black-and-gold mask came into view, one beady blue eye just visible inside the open slit of his mask. Robin's head whipped back toward Lucas, whose expression was pinched and pained.

"I am…truly sorry."

Robin turned back to Slade with only one thought on his mind: _Raven was right._

…

Pain. Outright, absolute agony.

Luke wondered if it were possible for looks to kill. If Robin had been Kryptonian, he had little doubt that his would have. As for the other two…well, their faces were _studies_ in betrayal, even in profile, which was the only part he could see now that they were all facing off against Deathstroke. The speedster's fists clenched at his sides, and he bit down hard to prevent from outright screaming.

"How fitting it is, for us to come full circle."

Robin scowled at the armored figure. "What do you want, Slade?"

"What I've _always_ wanted: an apprentice worthy of my approval."

Robin waved at Luke derisively. "Looks to me like you already _have_ one."

"A worthy disciple, to be sure," Slade replied, tucking his hands behind his back, "but you were always superior to all the rest. Smarter than all the rest." His one visible eye narrowed. "Always capable of so much more than the others, and all because you _lacked_ the powers that made them so 'special.'"

Robin eyed him carefully as he began pacing.

"You turned your humanity—normally considered a weakness in the face of such titans—into your greatest strength. Turned your perceived vulnerability into a trap for opponents to fall into. Your enemies underestimate you because you are not bulletproof, because you cannot fly or launch buildings into the air with a thought or gesture. And yet, at the end, without you…this 'team' is _nothing_."

"We weren't nothin' when we rescued Robin from you before!" Cyborg yelled.

Slade chuckled mockingly. "Boy, you rescued _no one_. Robin rescued himself, _and_ all of you, I might add. He forced my hand by making _himself_ a target of my vengeance, managed to outthink me. That is no small feat, and yet another reason why he belongs at _my_ side, and not yours."

"That will _never_ happen," Robin growled, pulling his bo from his belt.

"Ah-ah-ah," Slade reprimanded, raising a hand to halt him. "I'd put down the weapons and surrender if I were you."

Robin's masked eyes narrowed. "And why's that?"

For the first time in the conversation, Slade looked toward Luke. "Revenant, if you wouldn't mind."

With a slow gulp, Rev ran behind Slade to the TV and switched it to a camera feed of somewhere in the tower. His jaw tightened when he saw the content of the feed, but he wasn't surprised.

 _How could I be? I'm the one who_ put _them there._

Slowly, he turned back to the rest of the team, who were staring at the screen in unabashed horror, and strode up to stand just behind Slade, on his right side.

"You…monster," Robin hissed. "If you even _think_ about—"

"Stop your posturing, Robin," Slade interrupted. "It's unbecoming." He held up a remote in his right hand. "Raven and Starfire are fine…for now. I press this—and they won't be. But it won't have to come to that if you come quietly."

Robin was shaking with rage, holding his staff so tightly, Rev was sure his knuckles were white. Cyborg was scowling at Slade, looking much the same with his cannons at the ready. Beast Boy was just staring at the screen—at Raven in particular, if Luke was seeing right—with a look of abject terror on his face. And Lucas? He was hoping, _praying_ for something to swallow him up…or a miracle, maybe.

After a few heavy breaths, Robin dragged his gaze from Slade to Rev. "And you're just gonna let this happen? To your team? You're just gonna go with it, like a good little soldier." He snorted. "It's just _like_ Slade to take a good person and twist them inside out, use them for his own ends."

"Just like Terra," Beast Boy said in a near-whisper.

But Luke caught it, and faster than anyone could see, gave Deathstroke a sideways glance. His gray eyes focused back on Robin's tense stance after a few moments.

"My patience will _not_ last forever," Slade growled.

Luke took a fast, ragged breath as his heart pounded violently.

 _Just go_ with _him, dammit._

Slowly but surely, Robin's grip around his staff slackened, the pole lowering to the ground inch by inch until—

Robin froze, the weapon halfway out of his grip. He cast a glance at the TV, then turned his vision back to Slade. "No."

The following silence was deafening.

"What?" Slade demanded.

"I said…no." Robin straightened up, holding his staff even tighter. "I give up now, you'll kill them anyway. Despite what you told Cyborg, you _know_ how tenacious my friends are, and you know they'll never allow you to have me, not the way _you_ want." His lensed eyes narrowed dangerously. "So my answer…is _no_."

Silence reigned over the room for several tense seconds before Slade broke out into deep chuckles.

"You're absolutely right," he said, tone almost approving.

Lucas snapped his head to face him, eyes wide and jaw dropping halfway open as he slowly backed away in horror, the Titans disappearing behind the refrigerator.

"As long as they're alive, you have a reason to fight, a reason to resist me." He glanced over his shoulder at Starfire. "And _her_ in particular. With them gone, I will break you, and you will become _so_ much more than you are now. The weapon you were always _meant_ to be."

"I am _not_ a weapon," Robin growled. "And I am no one's slave. I will _never_ allow you to use me against innocent people _ever_ again…and especially not against my friends."

"If you love these freaks and misfits so much…" Slade whispered, blue eye flashing furiously, "you can _mourn_ for them."

Beast Boy lunged forward, and screamed, "No!"

Slade's right thumb hit the remote's trigger.

The three Titans instantly looked toward the screen.

Upon three seconds passing, and none of the Titans either breaking down or showing some extreme form of emotion, Slade also looked toward the feed to see—Raven and Starfire, still sleeping peacefully. Eye narrowing in confusion, he hit the button again…and again, and again, each time with no effect. He slowly turned back to the team, who were staring at him and the feed with a mixture of blank expressions and shock.

"How?" Slade asked quietly. "You wouldn't even know where to _begin_ to look for the receiver, and you've all been standing there this whole time." His visible eye narrowed. "It's—"

"What…impossible?"

Slade and the Titans turned to face Rev, who strode out from behind the fridge into plain view of all, hands tucked behind his back. He smirked malevolently and stared at Deathstroke.

"Because, if memory serves—" he smiled wider, gray eyes glaring at Slade as he raised his right hand and lifted a large, chip-like device into view, "—I learned sleight of hand from _you_." A furious scowl was plastered to his face as he crushed the device in one hand, tossing its shattered fragments aside in fury a second later.

Slade looked down at the six-foot speedster, a tension and rage in his stance that hadn't been there before. "You little _brat_. You dare betray _me_?"

Rev smiled nastily. "Oh, I dare a _lot_ more than that." He turned to Robin and the others. "Raven and Starfire are in the sub-basement. The kill device isn't difficult to disarm, but you're gonna have a tough time getting there."

No explanation of why was forthcoming—and for good reason, since the explanation started pouring out of the stairwell and elevator shafts by the dozens. Slade-bots, new, improved, and ready for action, took up positions on the Titans' other side, effectively boxing Robin and the others between them and their creator. Beast Boy and Cyborg turned to face the robot strike team while Robin kept his focus solely on Slade.

"As you can see, even with my disciple's betrayal, I've still outpaced and outmatched you."

Robin's masked eyes narrowed, a notable relief in his stance and tone. "We'll see about that. Titans, go!"

Deathstroke reached for a sword on his back, but was stopped when the White Revenant barreled into his chest shoulder-first, picking him off the ground and speeding him into the nearby stairwell, a furious yell sounding in his wake. He ran one floor up, to a massive floor-spanning observation deck and slammed him back-first into a support pillar, leaving a large Slade-shaped dent in its surface. Briefly winded, the enhanced human was vulnerable to a dozen speed punches to every angle of his armored form. He finally managed to regain his footing and counter with a backhand to his head.

Rev ducked under the shot and came back with an uppercut to his chin, dodging the next six counterattacks and zipping behind his once-mentor to plant a dashing elbow in his back. The blow knocked him into the air, allowing Luke to run in front of his flying body and deliver a high-speed roundhouse kick to his chest. Slade smacked the ground back-first, then found himself hauled upright by the collar as a furious White Revenant slammed him into another pillar, and then another.

"All this time—all this time, and I was nothing but a _tool_ to you!"

He roared and laid into him with everything he had, a half-dozen punches impacting Slade's lower ribs every second as the villain grunted and yelled with the strikes. Finally, he managed to launch a rapid jab at Rev's head—one that landed thanks to the speedster's rage-induced tunnel vision. Luke stumbled back a step, dodging several more blows to come his way, then running away from a hailstorm of bullets fired from a machine pistol at Slade's hip. The moment he heard the gun click empty, he ran back in and knocked it from his grip, then brought the bottom of his fist into the side of Slade's left knee.

Dropping into a kneeling position against his will, Slade sent several rapid blows in Rev's direction, but the enraged speedster grabbed his right arm and wrenched it several degrees in the wrong direction. Yelling in pain, Slade tried to right his arm as Rev forced his head upright and scowled down at him.

"Let them see you for who you _really_ are," he snarled.

And then he brought down a violent haymaker that both snapped Slade's head far to the right and knocked his helmet clear off. Underneath was revealed the face of an aged, scarred man with two blazing blue eyes and graying temples. Slade Wilson spat blood from his split lips, then smiled up at Rev.

"What's so funny?" the speedster demanded as he hauled him upright.

"Oh, nothing," he replied, a moment before grabbing Luke's arms and head-butting him solidly.

Luke yelped in pain as blood exploded from his broken nose, growling and running around Slade in blinding circles.

"Just something I never told you," Slade said.

"Oh yeah?" Luke brought several fast blows into Slade's back and sides. "And what's that?"

"For all your inhuman speed—" he grunted, instantly turning toward Luke's next attack and yanking something from his thigh with a metallic _shing_ , "—you're predictable."

Lucas stared up at him with wide gray eyes, wet, incoherent sputtering coming from his open mouth as he reached down and felt blood seeping from his chest. He stumbled back as Slade released him with a sinister smile, back thudding against a support pillar as he slid to the ground. Looking down, he could see a six-inch serrated knife driven into his gut up to the hilt, and he was no doctor, but _goddamn_ , that was a _lot_ of blood. Knowing Slade, he didn't aim for anything unimportant.

"You've become a real thorn in my side today, boy," Slade scolded. Another metallic _shing_ filled the air as a long, thin ninjato was drawn from his back. "But you were useful to get me this far." He smiled nastily, raising the sword. "For that, I grant you a quick death."

The blade fell—and stopped, just six inches from Luke's neck, a gold-colored metal pole blocking its path. The red-and-green form of Robin was seen on Rev's left, his arms straining against Deathstroke's considerable might.

"He betrayed you," Slade hissed, "and you would protect him?"

"That's the difference," Robin gasped, "between you and me. I don't save people…because they're useful."

Robin yelled as he managed to get more leverage, snapping Slade's sword away from Rev's body. He spun the bo as they both took stances, facing off against each other.

"I save them because it's the right thing to do."

Now that his mask was off, Slade's full expression of disappointment could finally be seen. "And that, Robin…is why you will never win."

With simultaneous roars, the two combatants leapt at each other and engaged in furious combat. Meanwhile, Luke was busy bleeding out on the floor, a knife in his gut, with no way to stop the flow since every time he pressed down, the knife-blade threatened to cut his hand. As Robin's grunts of effort and injury reached his ears, he looked over, panic lancing through his system as the Boy Wonder was smacked around almost effortlessly. Luke shook his head to clear out the black spots threatening to consume his vision, then looked down at the knife and grit his teeth as both hands wrapped around the hilt.

He bit down on a scream that partially escaped his throat anyway as he pulled, feeling his rapidly healing flesh tearing anew as the blade's serrated edge ground against his insides. Robin yelled and gasped in pain as his left wrist was dislocated, his bo dropping to the ground a split-second later. Luke glanced over to see him pinned against a pillar by the neck, Slade about to bring the hilt of his sword into the side of his head when Robin punched the tips of his gloved fingers into his throat suddenly, causing him to stumble back.

Slade recovered almost instantly, taking his revenge just as quickly as he slashed his sword across Robin's right shoulder and left thigh, the Boy Wonder desperately trying to fend him off with his armored gauntlets, but the pain slowing him down too much for him to recover. Luke growled in a mixture of rage and agony, and with one last yank, the knife was free. Blood spilled from the wound in his lower torso, and his left hand pressed against it as hard as it could as he struggled to get to his feet. Slade had Robin pinned to another pillar, hand on his throat.

"Four years it's taken me to find the truth," growled Slade, "but I finally see it now. Your will is too strong to submit to coercion or pain; an admirable trait, but not one I can work with."

"So what are you gonna do?" Robin hissed out.

"What I _should've_ done a long, long time ago." Deathstroke drew his sword back, ready to impale Robin to the wall with it when—

"Slaaaaade!"

His body turned toward the voice, half-startled. Luke's right arm swung—hard. A flash of serrated steel flew through the air. A wet _thunk_ as Robin was abruptly released.

And a scream of pain as Slade dropped his sword and brought his hands up to the hilt of the knife currently imbedded in his right eye.

Rev half-collapsed to the ground as he wheezed for breath, glaring at the writhing supervillain with hateful eyes. He took a runner's stance.

Robin's eyes widened in alarm. "Rev, no!"

The speedster roared and took off like a bolt of lightning, slamming both forearms into Slade's chest and catapulting him straight through the window at his back. He watched in morbid fascination as his armored body fell two hundred feet into the water below. A small, weak smile came to his lips as he looked back at the injured but intact Robin. And then he noticed the rapidly expanding pool of blood at his feet—and collapsed.

"Rev," Robin yelled, picking up his head and pressing one gloved hand against his injury hard. "Rev, stay with me!"

The pale speedster just smiled and nodded absently, gray eyes fading and drifting closed.

"Luke!"

* * *

AN: Cliffhanger! And only because when I wrote this chapter, it turned out _way_ too long. At any rate, I really hope you're enjoying this so far. I'm hoping to tie up this arc with the chapter that comes after, since I can't finish it here.

I know some of you are going to point out that Slade only has one eye, where here without the mask I have him with two. I'll explain that in the next chapter—or, rather, Lucas will.

Please review this chapter. I've been dying to write this bit for a while now, so I want to see how it came out.

 _Oya, vode_.

\- CDrake


	6. Decisions

Robin's teeth clenched hard as he glanced out the shattered window, his gloved hands pressing against Luke's lower chest hard.

"Robin!"

He turned his head to see Beast Boy and Cyborg running toward him. "Rev's been stabbed! He's losing a lot of blood."

Cyborg sent a scanning wave over his body once they got within range, and his features morphed into something that was _decidedly_ not good. "This is bad," he confirmed a second later, reaching down with his left hand to replace Robin's hands over the injury. "He's hemorrhaging internally, body's goin' into shock." His head shook. "I can't help him here." He looked up to Robin and Beast Boy. "Go find the girls. I got this."

"Vic," Robin started uneasily.

"Go!"

The pair stood and took off as Cyborg made for the nearby stairwell, his hand clamping down on the injury like a vise. Robin tried his hardest not to focus on the thick trail of blood strewn about the observation deck, finding it much easier when he remembered how helpless Raven and his girlfriend were. He ignored the drying blood on his gloves and sprinted down the steps for the sub-basement, finding the remains of Slade-bots strewn all around the tower. When they reached the sub-basement, one final squad of robots confronted them outside the room Rev had told them about.

Robin had retrieved his bo staff on the way down and clenched his hands around it now, feeling a pit of worry, fear, and outright rage stirring in his gut. Since Slade was currently sleeping with the fishes, these bots would have to serve as the object of his frustrations. From the animalistic growls at his left, Beast Boy seemed to feel the same way. So they charged and unleashed it all.

…

Of all the Titans, Raven was perhaps the one person who reacted the most unexpectedly to news of Lucas' betrayal. Maybe it was the tranquilizing agent that was just managing to filter out of her system, but Gar didn't think so. He'd seen her on the verge of passing out several times in the last twenty-four hours, and this was probably the most alert she'd been. Standing ramrod-straight in front of the infirmary, cup of tea in hand and violet eyes scanning across Robin's features, she'd been visibly and completely unaffected by the news.

No smirk, no smug comment, no "I told you so." Just a silent nod and a slow turn to the infirmary window, where Victor was busy using every robot, technique, and machine in his lab to keep Rev alive. For most people, Raven seemed completely ambivalent to the entire situation. To Beast Boy, his enhanced senses told a different story. Her breathing rate was slightly elevated, as was her heart rate, and perspiration…well, as a general rule, Raven didn't sweat. He was just picking up hints of it, but hints were enough to tell him something was off. It didn't seem like an angry response to him.

No, this seemed like fear and—dare he say—worry. Yes, she was worried, though about Luke or something else he couldn't tell. Considering that she hadn't looked away from his bloodied, immobile form for the last ten minutes, his money was on the former. Gar gently tapped her shoulder, the girl taking a quick intake of breath and looking back at him. He smiled and handed her another cup of tea. She blinked and took it with a small nod of thanks. Robin watched the exchange with absent curiosity, arms crossed as he stared into the infirmary with the rest.

"Friends," Starfire said from behind, "Cyborg is performing, as you would say, every trick in the book. There is nothing more we can do. Unless—"

"Unless I help him," Raven said in monotone.

Beast Boy looked to her. "Are you even recovered enough for that?"

She turned to him sharply.

"I mean…what if something goes wrong? What if there's some kind of backlash, or you—"

"Gar," she interrupted, "I appreciate the concern—I guess—but I've done far more under worse circumstances."

"That's not exactly reassuring," he grumbled.

There was a small twitch at the corners of her mouth, one that Beast Boy would've missed if he'd blinked, but he saw it. A smile. Very, very slight, but still there, and just enough to reassure him she'd be fine. The hooded girl proceeded through the doors of the infirmary, standing by Luke's bed as Cyborg glanced up at her. They didn't hear the words that were exchanged, but the intent was clear enough. The girl placed her hands on Rev's injury, the appendages and rupture glowing with blue energy as she focused.

"Raven and Cyborg will see to our injured comrade," Starfire said. "In the meantime, should we not find some way to pass the time? Relax somewhat? The situation is out of our hands."

Robin sighed and looked toward a tense Beast Boy. "She has a point, Gar. Much as I hate it—" and by his clenched fists, did he _ever_ , "—it's beyond our control. We just have to trust that they'll handle anything to come their way."

"Yeah," Gar said absently, eyes still glued to Raven. "I'm gonna stay. Make sure she's okay when it's all over." He glanced over at a mildly slack-jawed Robin and shrugged. "You know how much it drains her when she heals others, especially from somethin' that bad."

Robin's features briefly twitched with something close to surprise before melding into blatant approval. He smiled and nodded, then took Starfire's hand and disappeared into an elevator. Garfield just turned back toward the window and leaned against the glass, sighing hard. His green eyes eventually turned from Raven's profile to Luke's unconscious features. A plastic tube was stuck down his throat. Gar distantly remembered something about a collapsed lung or some such. Unlike Robin, he wasn't familiar with a ton of medical terms, despite his parents' occupation, but the words "collapsed" and "lung" in the same sentence just _sounded_ bad.

By the periodic look of consternation on Cyborg's face, it _was_ bad. When Raven finally stepped away from the medical bed, she pulled her hood back and was breathing heavily. Beast Boy was about to run in there and help when she found a seat and slumped into it, dozing off a few moments later with a rather troubled expression. Concerned, Gar entered the room quietly and approached her immobile form.

"She's okay," Vic said, "just tired." He motioned one free hand toward another bed. "If you wanna put her there, that'd probably be best. So she's on hand just in case and doesn't wake up with whiplash."

Gar nodded and gently picked her up, laying her on another mattress and laying an emergency blanket over her sleeping form. His hands lingered a few moments on her shoulders as he looked down at her, then strode off to stand at Rev's bed opposite Cyborg.

"How's he doing?"

Vic glanced up at him, expression grim. "I'm not gonna lie, B; it's been a nightmare. Couldn't figure out what was wrong with him at first. Usually, speedsters recover pretty fast with help, even from somethin' this critical."

Gar frowned. "So what was the problem?"

Victor pushed away from the bed and reached over to a small glass container, handing it to Gar. "That. A shard of the knife Slade stabbed him with, designed to break off on entry."

Gar arched an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"Look on the underside. See that round gap? There was a capsule there that shattered when he yanked it out."

He looked up into the container and rattled around its contents. "What was inside it?"

"Some kinda corrosive toxin. Complex, powerful stuff. All his healing was doing was slowing its progress. He apparently had that knife as a failsafe if Rev ever turned on him…like he did."

Gar frowned. "Just like Terra."

Vic snapped his metal fingers in BB's face to get his attention. "Rev's still here, Gar. He's still alive, and after what Raven just did, his chances of pullin' through just went up by several orders of magnitude."

He released a long sigh of relief, partially slumping against the support rail of the bed. His gaze eventually drifted over to Raven. "And what about Rae?"

"What _about_ her?"

Gar gave Cyborg a look.

The half-robot just snickered and shook his head. "Man, you've been worried sick about her ever since yesterday. It was just a trank dart, ya grass stain."

"Yeah, according to Wintergreen."

"No, B, according to _me_."

Gar stared at him.

Cyborg chuckled. "You didn't _really_ think I'd a supervillain's word for it when it comes to one of ours, did you?"

"Well, I—" He stopped talking immediately, feeling heat rise in his face as he looked down.

A metal hand laid on his shoulder a second later. "She's gonna be fine, Gar. All of 'em will. You'll see."

Beast Boy sighed hard and looked up at Rev's pale features. "Really hope you're right."

…

 _Beep._

 _Beep._

 _Beep-beep._

 _Beep-beep._

A small, nearly inaudible groan came from a set of recently cleaned white sheets, the body underneath shaking slightly as it attempted to move. A set of gray eyes slowly slid open, and a set of white foam squares contained in a metal grid met them. Another groan, louder this time, came from the throat of the teen who owned them as his eyes slid shut.

"Not again," he muttered.

"Afraid so."

Luke's eyes snapped open as he bolted upright, turning to face a smirking Cyborg.

The half-robot stood up and approached his bed. "Don't sweat it, man. I hate hospitals too."

The speedster said nothing, just nodded slowly and laid back against the bed when a sharp pain lanced through his lower chest. Hissing in pain, he looked down and gingerly pressed his hand against the sore spot. Cyborg smacked the appendage away.

"You have any idea what we went through to stabilize that injury?"

Luke looked up at him owlishly.

Cy crossed his arms. "You tear it open, you can stitch your own damn self up."

The speedster's lips twitched in a small smile, but his heart was going too fast and his memories were coming back and he could still see the looks on their faces when he—

Luke nearly jumped clear out of bed when he felt Cyborg's hand on his shoulder. Instead, his hands were vibrating at nearly phase-level speed. He bit down on his lower lip with a frown, trying to steady himself, but it wasn't working. It took him a few seconds to realize that he and the Cyborg were no longer alone, and that someone—or several someones—was talking to him.

He blinked up at them owlishly. "What?"

Robin sighed and shook his head slightly. "Take it easy, Rev. You've been out for a while."

He gulped. "How long exactly?"

"Between the collapsed lung, exsanguination, and shock," Cyborg began, "your body's regenerative powers have been goin' on overdrive. That's not even takin' the poison into account."

Lucas' eyes flew wide open. "Poison?! What poison?"

Robin frowned. "Slade's knife, the one you had stuck in you? Part of the tip broke off and emptied a capsule of highly concentrated poison into your body. Raven and Cyborg managed to eradicate it."

He glanced at the two in question, eyes lingering on the hooded girl for a moment. "Any chance Deathstroke got any of it in _his_ system?"

Robin's frown deepened as he shook his head. "No. The entirety of the capsule's contents were dispensed the moment you yanked the knife out."

Luke's upper lip twitched. "Shame."

Lucas couldn't be sure, but by the confused looks Robin was getting from the rest of the team, they didn't know what he'd done to jettison Slade from the tower. He wondered why the Boy Wonder hadn't told them. Probably thought they had enough on their plates with him so close to death. Speaking of which, he'd peeled the sheet halfway off his chest and lifted the section of his gown that covered the— _holy crap_ , that was going to be a bad scar. He smirked bitterly. As a speedster, scars didn't really happen to him. Figured that the one person who had hurt him more than _anyone_ would be the one person who could find a way to leave a mark.

 _Bastard,_ he thought.

His gray eyes caught Raven giving him a sideways look.

 _Right. Empath._

He winced and tried to take a deep, calming breath, but between the pain, everyone staring at him, and his own tumultuous emotions, it was a great deal more difficult than he expected. A soft touch was felt on his bare forearm, and he blinked up to see Raven standing there, looking down at him with her lips in the typical pattern of her permanent frown. Suddenly, a wave of calming energy flowed over him, and he sighed in relief as his eyes closed, his left hand unconsciously gripping her fingers as his mind gradually managed to anchor itself.

It was almost a full minute later before he spoke, not trusting himself to look them in the eye. "I suppose… "I'm sorry" wouldn't quite cut it?"

Silence.

Luke sighed hard and let his head fall back, releasing Raven's hand. "I didn't think so." He ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "I…don't really know where to begin."

Robin pulled up a chair and sat a few feet away from him, fingers laced together. "Start where you left off yesterday. You lied when you said you got away."

Luke chuckled humorlessly. "I lied about a _lot_ of things, actually. Or, rather, I left a lot out." He let out a long breath. "I didn't lie about not wanting to use my speed. Even after I escaped Slade's facility, I hated what I'd become, so much so that when some shady government types took me into custody, I didn't put up a bit of fight."

"Government?"

His head cocked slightly. "Government contractors, technically. Remember the kid I hit? Quint?"

Robin and Starfire nodded. Evidently, he'd filled her in when Luke was out.

"Well, turns out that running him over was the worst possible mistake I could've made. His parents—entire family, really—were connected. And when I say connected, I mean _connected_. Corporations, lawyers, contractors, government—they had—have friends in some _very_ high places." He frowned, left eye twitching. "One such place…was a metahuman research think-tank…called Project Cadmus."

Robin's eyes widened slightly.

Rev noticed. "You know them?"

Robin's head tilted down slightly. "We've had…interactions."

"Then you know the kind of stuff they're involved in. Shady black ops research geared toward exploiting metahumans, turning them into government-controlled weapons."

"This is what happened to you?" Starfire asked in a surprisingly small voice.

Luke blinked rapidly. "Yes."

As if a compulsion, Star's right hand tightened into a fist, and her eyes started to glow. Robin's hand took hers, his thumb rubbing circles into its back for a few seconds as she calmed.

He looked back to Luke. "Star went through a similar experience before coming to Earth. These experiments gave her the ability to use starbolts, but…they also left scars." He rubbed a thumb over her loosened hand. "Most aren't physical."

Lucas frowned and gave Starfire a sympathetic look. "I can understand that."

"Why did Cadmus select _you_?" Cyborg asked, arms crossed.

He gave them a cynical smile. "Money. Why else? Money and opportunity. Quint's parents were pissed that the police hadn't done a damn thing to punish the 'delinquent' that crippled their son, so when they found out I'd reappeared, they offered Cadmus the chance to analyze me. These days, metas are a dime a dozen, but speedsters…" his head shook slowly, "speedsters are another matter _entirely_. Why? Take three guesses."

Cyborg started counting off guesses on his fingers. "Speedforce, Speedforce, and Speedforce."

He smirked and nodded. "Exactly. To find someone with the Speedforce in their system, outside of the mainstream, virtually unknown—now _that's_ an opportunity too good to pass up."

Beast Boy glanced over at Robin. "Dude, you know these guys and haven't found a way to bring 'em down?"

Robin frowned. "In spite of their clearly unethical methods, Cadmus is _obsessively_ careful about not leaving evidence trails, paper or otherwise. If we were criminals, we could just break in and burn their facilities to the ground."

Lucas laughed mockingly. "We _are_ criminals, Robin. The difference is, we have a conscience. We tow a line that doesn't exist for the ones we put away."

"Not _all_ of us," Robin muttered, almost inaudibly.

Luke shot him a look, but ignored the comment. "Anyway, Cadmus spent the better part of two months doing almost exactly the same thing as Slade…with a few differences. Truth is, they treated me worse than _he_ did." He smirked bitterly. "I guess that's what happens when you think of someone as a tool rather than a person. They pushed me, hard. Pushed the limits of my abilities, of my speed. Kept me drugged most of the time, to keep me from escaping."

"So how did you get out?"

"Either they got sloppy with the doses—which is unlikely—or I got stronger, strong enough to kick-start my metabolism and burn through the tranks faster. When I realized I was clear enough, I ran. Didn't even _try_ to fight, but I did manage to clock the head honcho one. Wish I could've seen the look on her face, but…priorities, right?"

"Her?" BB asked.

"Amanda Waller," Robin answered. "She's been head of Project Cadmus for almost five years now."

"I ever see that bitch again, I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind." He sighed hard and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I got out, but as you well know, they always have contingencies, so when the perimeter lit up in an electrified fence, I was boxed in. Deathstroke busted me out. Took out one of the power pylons keeping it together and gave me a lane."

"That's why you went with him?"

"No," he replied with a shake of the head. "I went with him because he was right." Luke sighed hard. "Before I escaped his compound, he'd told me something right after a particularly grueling training session. He said that people never forgot your mistakes, that they always held them against you no matter how much you change." He huffed. "And he was right. Cadmus found me almost _immediately_ after I left his custody and subjected me to things I wouldn't have wished on anyone. All because of a single, stupid accident."

Luke shrugged. "So I went with him willingly, eagerly even. I learned everything I could about controlling my powers, about protecting myself and using my speed to remain unseen." He looked up at them. "When you guys thought I was taking a nap, I was actually running around the tower, getting the layout of the place and accessing your database."

Robin's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

He smiled ruefully. "Because I needed to know the truth. I needed to know _everything_ , both sides of every story I'd been told, both about you guys _and_ Slade. I'd like to say that after that, betraying Slade had been my plan all along. With everything he'd done, everything I knew he was capable of, the decision had practically already been made."

"So why did you turn on us anyway?" Raven asked with an edge to her voice.

His head shook slowly as he stared at the sheets. "Because I was afraid. I was afraid that if you knew the truth, if you knew the _real_ reason I was here, you'd turn me out or take me in to the police. My mind was split, fifty-fifty. You have to understand…from my point of view, Slade Wilson was the only person I'd ever known who, however rough, had treated me like I was more than just a nuisance or a weapon. He treated me like a person. I daresay…like a son?" Luke sighed hard and smiled ruefully. "What a naïve fool I was."

Beast Boy put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, well, considering the crap you've had to put up with from everyone else, Slade must've felt like a saint."

"But it was all a lie," he ground out. "I was just a tool to him all along. Just another pawn in his game to get _you_ on his side." He nodded at Robin.

Robin was silent for a long time. "What changed your mind?"

Lucas frowned deeply. "Slade did…when I found out that he lied." He leaned his head back against the pillow. "When I was first given this mission, he told me that all he wanted was to get you away from the Titans, that no one else would get hurt as long as you cooperated." He grimaced. "He taught me about honor, about the code that true warriors were supposed to abide by, even when dealing with enemies." His upper lip curled into a snarl. "But it was all a lie, a front to manipulate me because he knew I would never agree to the outright slaughter he actually had planned.

"When he told you that he would've killed Starfire and Raven anyway…I knew for sure. He would've killed all of you without even blinking. There was no honor in that. It was just wanton killing, and I refused to be party to it." His lips pursed. "I may be frigid sometimes, but I'm not a stone-cold killer…no matter how much he may have tried to make me into one."

Robin frowned and looked off to the side for a few moments before speaking up. "Speaking of blinking, why did his mask cover the right side of his face completely if he had two eyes all along? Was he purposefully limiting himself?"

Lucas gave him a quizzical look. "You didn't inspect the mask?"

Luke got the distinct feeling Robin's eyes were rolling. "Didn't really have the opportunity, between saving you and freeing Star and Raven."

The speedster nodded. "I got the chance to inspect it once. Compared the tech inside to Slade's rather extensive database." He motioned to his own right eye. "The right side of the mask had an eyepiece with an integrated multi-spectrum heads-up display, not unlike one used by another assassin, Deadshot."

Robin frowned. "I'm familiar with his work."

"Pretty sure he stole and repurposed the tech from him."

The room fell silent for another few seconds before Robin glanced at the rest of the Titans. "You guys mind clearing out for a bit? I want to speak with Luke alone."

They exchanged confused looks, but nodded and sidled from the room in single file, the soundproof door closing behind them.

…

Robin turned back to Luke with a critical eye, lips pursed tightly. The speedster stared back at him with an arched eyebrow and quizzical expression.

The Boy Wonder leaned toward him, hands in his lap. "We need to talk…about what you did to Slade."

Lucas' face twitched a bit as he sighed. "Figured you were gonna say that." He leaned back. "Why haven't you told the others?"

"Because I need to know for myself first. Why'd you do it?"

He blinked and looked straight at Robin. "Because you were in danger."

"I know I was, but…why…why do _that_?"

He snorted a humorless laugh. "Did it look like I was in any shape for a protracted battle? I did what I had to do to keep you safe. Nothing more, nothing less. If I'd just jettisoned his armored ass out of the tower, he would've just come right on back—and you know it."

Robin's upper lip twitched. "So instead, you just _killed_ him."

Luke stared at him blankly.

Robin chuckled humorlessly. "I mean, you just got finished telling us that you're not a cold killer, and yet—" He stopped abruptly when an unexpected noise came from Luke's throat.

"Heh. Heh."

Robin stared at him as he tried to keep his features blank. Lucas failed a moment later when he broke out in a painful (and mildly disturbing), gut-busting laugh that lasted several seconds.

"I—I'm sorry, I know you're being serious, but…" he rubbed his eyes, "it's just..." Another bout of laughs. "Slade always said you could be dense at times, but...I always thought he was exaggerating." He cackled again.

"What is so _funny_?" Robin ground out.

"You!" Another laugh. "I mean—me, kill Slade?"

Robin stared at him uncomprehendingly as he wiped tears from his eyes.

"What, with a knife to the eye socket and a two hundred foot fall into a body of water?"

Dread coursed through Robin's veins like ice.

Lucas let out another round of laughter, calming down as he rubbed his mildly leaking eyes. "Oh, Robin, Robin, _Robin_ …" He turned to the Titan in question with a look that was somewhere between disappointment and outright hysteria. "We _both_ know better than that."

Robin noticed his hands trembling and vibrating uncontrollably, his lips and jaw doing the same thing as he looked down at the shaking appendages.

 _Oh God…he's_ terrified _._

The heart monitor on the other side of his bed started going crazy, and his lungs were inflating and deflating haphazardly.

"Oh God," Luke whispered shakily. "What have I done?"

"Luke," Robin said quietly. " _Luke_ ," he repeated forcefully.

His gray eyes snapped up to him, blinking rapidly.

Robin gingerly took the speedster's madly vibrating hand and gripped it tightly. "Whatever happens next…we'll face it. Together." He hit a control on his belt, summoning the others inside.

Lucas looked from Robin to them and back. "But…but I—"

"You made a mistake," Robin interrupted, "yes. Did people get hurt? Yes. Did you break our trust? Absolutely. But you also risked your life—and almost _gave_ it—to protect us." Robin looked at his other teammates. "Unless anyone has an objection, I'm letting White Revenant keep his status as a Titan."

They all either shook their heads or remained silent.

Luke glanced at all of their faces, his gaze eventually settling on Raven. "Out of everyone…I would've thought that at least you would—"

"Why? Because I was right not to trust you?"

He nodded numbly.

Raven blinked, then pulled back her hood and approached him with a piercing stare. "I was wrong too."

Beast Boy outright gaped at her.

Her violet eyes rolled. "Yes, I just admitted making a mistake. It's not the end of the world." She turned back to Luke. "I was born to destroy Earth. That was _my_ past. But it's not how we start that determines who we are." She blinked, her look softening almost unnoticeably. "It's how we finish."

Lucas blinked up at her owlishly. "I…I don't—"

Beast Boy laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't sweat it, dude."

"B-But Terra—"

"Terra did not realize her mistakes until it was too late," Starfire interrupted, also drawing closer.

"If she had," Cyborg added, "we would've taken her back. No question. Might've been pissed for a while, but we never would've abandoned her."

"Why?" Luke asked with a shake of the head.

"Because _everyone_ makes mistakes," Robin answered. "I've made my fair share for sure. We all have. Some are more damaging than others, but no matter what you've done, everyone deserves a second chance." He handed Luke something from his belt. "This is yours…if you take it."

…

Luke stared down at the gold-and-black communicator, the white T emblazoned in its center staring up at him. He looked up at the five people around him. His friends. His team. If he wanted it. Was it all an elaborate ruse? Some double-bluff to see if they could milk his ties to Slade? He doubted someone like Starfire or Beast Boy had the guile for that, but Robin…Slade had been right. Robin was by _far_ the most dangerous of the lot. As he looked up into Robin's masked features, he had to wonder.

Unbidden, Slade's voice entered his mind. _"No one will_ ever _forget what you did, Carlisle. Ever. It will follow you to the day you die."_

Lucas frowned, turning his gray eyes back to the communicator. They closed a moment later, and a full minute passed before they opened again. He turned back to the team, eyes hard.

His decision had been made.

…

1 month later

"Finding everything all right, sir?"

Luke smiled at the girl who'd asked him, mentally admiring her tastefully-placed piercings and dyed hair. "I am, thank you. Be checking out soon, I think."

He winked playfully, and the girl, who looked no older than seventeen, just arched an eyebrow and gave him a look that said, "Really?"

Lucas just snickered and went back to scanning the record store for more marks. He had a turntable tucked under his arm, gray eyes scanning the racks for prime selections. Spotting a few, he snatched them up and stacked them on the turntable's box, making his way to the checkout register, which was manned by the same girl. He stacked them on the counter and waited as she scanned all the items. When she reached the tail end of his pile, a fast picking solo on an electric guitar sounded from his pocket, the chanting of voices increasing in the background over time.

As the girl scanned one item after the next, she cast Luke a glance. "That your phone?"

He smirked. "Yeah."

She scanned the last item. "You gonna answer it?"

"Eventually. I just love this song."

Drums joined the guitar and voices, a bass coming in a few seconds later.

The checkout girl smirked, causing her lip ring to glint just slightly in the setting sunlight. "It's a good choice."

Lucas shrugged. "I've been known to make a good decision every once in a while."

He grinned at her flirtatiously, and this time, she smiled back and rolled her eyes, as if used to the treatment. Luke handed over the required payment and picked up his stack as the lead singer started in on the first verse. He pulled a round object with an antenna from his pocket and observed the screen, showing a throbbing red dot some miles away. She handed him his change, and he made it halfway to the door before stopping and going back to her.

"You know what, sweetheart? Why don't you hold onto these for me? Got someplace to be, and I don't want to risk damaging the goods." He smiled disarmingly.

She arched an eyebrow at "sweetheart," but smirked and nodded as the verse reached a fever pitch.

"— _the drums…beatin' in my heart!_ "

Luke exited the shop and made for a nearby alley.

" _The thunder of drums—tearin' me apart!_ "

The dusk shadows hid the alley in darkness, but inside, a burst of silver light illuminated rapid movement. Seconds later, a white-gray clad form stepped from the shadows, smiling. He knelt down in a runner's stance.

" _You've been—_ "

Silver lightning danced in his eyes as the lead singer briefly paused.

"— _thunderstruck!_ "

And the White Revenant took off like a bolt of silver lightning, the dust in his wake the only evidence of his passing as he sped toward trouble…and his new family.

* * *

AN: Finally! The introductory chapters are over! Probably gonna pause this story for a while, so I hope I left you guys with a decent drop-off point. Not much else to say, really. I hope this makes sense so far. Tons more excitement to come in later chapters, so keep an eye on your e-mail for chapter alerts in the future.

Please review and recommend this to your friends.

 _Oya, vode_.

\- CDrake

P.S.: In case you didn't know, the song at the end was "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC.


	7. Lines

"Remind me never to stick too close to you guys when we're fighting Plasmus." Beast Boy grinned a little as he sent his fellow goop-sodden teammates a quick glance. "Get it? _Stick_ close—"

"We get it, moron," Raven deadpanned as she resisted the urge to shake off more goo—and further soak her teammates in the process.

She made for the showers immediately, along with Star and BB. Cyborg was down in the garage using the high-powered car washer to get grime out of his harder-to-reach parts. Robin, despite his soiled clothes, was heading to the crime lab to get a tissue sample of Plasmus' new form analyzed. He'd been muttering something about "increased instability" and "corrosive potential." Rev hadn't said a thing throughout the entirety of the attack, but that wasn't exactly unusual. Speaking of, where was he?

Eh, it didn't matter. At the moment, Raven's only desire was to grab a spare uniform, get the hell out of her soiled one, and give herself a thorough rinse-down.

"Yo, Rae? Got an extra towel?"

She arched a dark eyebrow, having already stripped down and entered a shower stall. "Is that a crack about my weight?"

"…what?"

Raven smirked and rolled her eyes in self-annoyance. "Never mind."

She didn't blame him for not getting it. It _had_ been an _extremely_ bad joke. Like, Beast Boy-level bad. Raven winced. Damn. He was rubbing off on her. Coming out of her thoughts, Raven realized she'd been moving on autopilot, already half-done with her shower. It never took her long to attend to herself. It wasn't that she avoided self-care; she just didn't take the time to enjoy it. Time to herself was best enjoyed outside the context of hygiene, usually over a good book or—

Her train of thought stopped as her hand froze halfway to the soap dish. Her head cocked slightly as she looked toward the bathroom exit. Was that…music?

A mellow jazz tune echoed throughout the halls of the dormitory floor, a soft male voice drifting through the walls like a soothing wave. Raven frowned in concentration as she rinsed off and wrapped a towel around her, stepping just outside the stall to grab her uniform and don it quickly. She stepped outside the bathroom in her boots and leotard, no hood or cloak, and approached the common room, the source of the music. Raven moved into the room methodically, wishing she'd brought a towel to finish drying her hair, however short it was.

An old-style (yet brand new) turntable sat atop a previously empty section of the kitchen counter, its needle dragging gingerly against a vinyl record. She gently slid her bare fingers over its wooden base, the dark finish polished to a shine. A smile twitched at her features at seeing such an old-fashioned but classy device sitting in their uber high-tech tower. A small draft hit her back, and she turned her head to see Lucas Carlisle sitting in an armchair in front of the TV, one leg crossed over the other as one hand held a book open in his lap, the other propping his chin up.

"Rev," Raven said quietly. She remembered the music when he didn't respond. "Rev!"

He blinked and started a bit, then looked up at her quizzically.

She pointed at the turntable. "Your doing?"

He shrugged and smiled a little. "Didn't really have much else to spend it on." A small laugh bubbled from his throat. "And since Vic and Gar already have the most updated games—" another shrug, "—it just made sense."

Raven arched an eyebrow and busied herself with heating up kettle water. "So you _do_ act like a normal teenager."

"Ha ha," he deadpanned. "You're one to talk."

She shrugged in concession.

"But yeah, sometimes I do."

"Sometimes?" Raven pulled the kettle off the heat once it started whistling.

"Yeah." He suddenly appeared in front of her when she turned around, a small smile on his lips. "Too busy the rest of the time." He motioned vaguely toward the kettle.

Raven nodded her assent and handed it to him as soon as her cup was poured. She started to lift a spare tea bag for him, but he snorted derisively and waved her off. Fast as she could blink, he reached into the same cupboard where she'd gotten the bags and pulled out a different set. Seconds later, a lemon and a container of honey sat on the counter next to the kettle and his brewing cup. She watched in absent interest as she waited for the tea to steep, her teammate painstakingly measuring out portions of honey and dispensing squeezed lemon into his cup. After the proper steeping period, he stirred it gently and tested the water with his pinky.

Frowning at the lack of temperature, he smirked and rubbed his hands on the side of the ceramic, steam rising from it moments later.

Raven snorted and sipped her own tea, muttering, "Showoff."

"You didn't have to watch," he remarked.

Raven nearly choked on her tea, not expecting him to have heard her.

Lucas looked back at her with a wry grin. "'Sides, there ain't enough time in the day for _anyone_ , much less teenage heroes." He zipped back over to his seat, amazingly avoiding spilling any of his drink and returning to his book.

Raven blinked and took another sip, frowning a little. "Doesn't mean you should always be running on all cylinders. Sooner or later, you're gonna burn yourself out."

He shrugged and shook his head, not facing her. "On the contrary, I always seem to have a ton of excess energy to burn."

She noticed for the first time that he'd been leafing through the pages of his book one every five seconds. Not fast enough to be considered speed-reading—for a speedster, at least—but definitely enough to be faster than normal. And he was somehow still finding the concentration to talk to her. Raven suddenly felt a small surge of envy—not for the first time—at his level of control. She'd been working her whole life to keep her powers from getting out of hand, and yet in just a few short years, he'd virtually mastered some of the finer points of his speed.

"Still," Raven said finally, "I don't think it's healthy to keep going like you've been."

Luke stopped suddenly and flipped the book closed, looking back at her with a frown. "What do you mean, 'like I've been'?"

She sighed and sat down on the couch across from him, legs tucked under her. "For the last month, you've been going pretty much on overdrive. Like you're still trying to earn your place on the team." She frowned harder. "Maybe worse."

He blinked. "And who's to say that isn't just my default?"

Raven tilted her head and gave him a sarcastic look. "I can feel your emotions, you know. You lost a lot of worry when Robin handed you your communicator…but it didn't vanish."

His gaze hardened slightly and jaw tightened. "And why exactly have you been probing my emotions?"

She sighed hard. "Because I'm not the only one who's noticed your intensity. And I'm not the only one who's worried."

Before he could reply, the elevator dinged open and a shining Cyborg stepped off.

"Yeesh," the half-robot exclaimed, "if I never have to see another power washer, it'll be too soon."

Rev lost his hard look and smirked easily. "See if you're saying that the next time Logan decides to stank-bomb you."

He shuddered at the thought. "Man, don't jinx me."

A sudden beep from somewhere by the elevator sent Cyborg moving toward the source. He frowned.

"Speaking of Jinx..."

Raven arched an eyebrow. "Don't tell me."

"She's ringin' our front doorbell."

An irritated sigh came from the sorceress' throat. "Way to cap off the perfect day with a perfect ending," she muttered. "Did she bring Kid Mouth with her? Because that is something I do _not_ need to be present for."

Rev looked at her, confused. "Who now?"

"She means Kid Flash," Victor said.

At that, Luke's tea and book were both laid down as he flew to his feet. "Kid Flash? _The_ Kid Flash? He's _here_?"

Raven groaned internally and rubbed her temples. _Vic, please say no._

Cyborg hit a button to open the door and sent an elevator down. "Doesn't look like—"

The momentary relief from the first half of that sentence was eradicated when another gust of wind entered the common room and a flash of golden lightning followed a yellow-and-red body on its way inside.

Kid Flash grinned from ear to ear as Jinx stepped off the elevator, her expression quickly turning to an annoyed deadpan. He was at her side in a second. "Beat ya."

"Surprise, surprise," Jinx deadpanned, sending a smirk in Raven's direction as the dark girl gave them both a borderline death glare.

And then she caught sight of Luke, and her pink eyes brightened in what Raven immediately decided was a _very_ bad sign.

"Just so you all know," Kid Flash went on, "I gave her about a two hour head start."

"Just so you know, KF," Jinx replied dismissively, "nobody cares."

The speedster looked put-out for _about_ a tenth of a second before he was back to zipping around the room, gusts of wind left in his wake sending steam curling away from both teacups. "So where's the rest of the team? Where's Robin? Ishebeinganuptightlittletwitagain?"

"Yo," Cyborg interrupted, "nobody can understand you when you talk that fast."

Luke raised his hand somewhat hesitantly. "I can."

Raven nearly facepalmed, releasing a quiet sigh instead.

KF's head snapped toward Rev, and his body followed a moment later, the speedster up in the younger man's face and causing him to jolt back into his seat. Wally exchanged looks with everyone else in the room before returning his gaze to Luke and letting his lips stretch into a smile.

"You guys have been holding out on me."

Rev arched an eyebrow. "And Robin's _always_ an uptight little twit. I don't know why you're surprised."

KF let out a short laugh. "Okay, I'm sold. I like this guy already."

Rev snorted a laugh and muttered, "Well _that_ was easy."

He cast a gray-eyed look in Raven's direction, quickly looking away as Kid Flash backed up.

"Not that we're complaining," Cyborg finally said, "but what are you guys doing here?"

Jinx cast him a look. "Kid Flash finally got around to reading the report on what happened with Slade last month and decided that the original Titans needed some pick-me-up."

Luke suddenly went stiff. "He told you?" He cast a look at the redhead, then at Jinx. "All of you?"

The couple exchanged a look, KF speaking up. "Well…yeah."

Luke blinked hard. "How much?"

"Everything," came a new voice from a side hallway. Robin stepped into view moments later, casting curious looks between the newcomers and an understandably tense Lucas. "On this team, we don't keep secrets like that. Not from each other."

Raven could see Luke's hands getting sweaty, and when she looked closely enough, she noticed that the appendages were vibrating ever so slightly. When Kid Flash noticed, a rare but refreshing seriousness entered his eyes.

"Hey man, why so nervous?"

Rev blinked hard and fast, flinching as he turned to face the other speedster. "Well…I—"

Wally zipped over and slung an arm around his shoulders. "Dude, you're talkin' to the guy who's dating a former _supervillain_." He smirked. "Don't _quite_ think you reached that level of doucheness."

"Excuse me?" Jinx hissed.

KF laughed nervously, holding his hands up in surrender. "Not that you were ever like that, babe…"

She rolled her pink eyes. "Uh huh. Suuuure."

He flashed in front of her and grinned. "You know you still love me," he cooed.

She glared in his direction, eyes flashing with pink flares. "There are times when I wonder." Her slitted eyes drifted over to Rev, gaining back the spark of mischief Raven had seen before. "And now, I see another _far_ more manageable speedster." She smirked and half-lidded her eyes, approaching Rev and leaning on her knees as she brought her head down to his eye level. "Doesn't hurt that he's such a _cutie_ , either."

Both speedsters went understandably red as Raven visibly (and audibly) facepalmed and Cyborg rolled his eyes.

"Heh…not that I don't appreciate the compliment," Luke started nervously, "but I don't go for girls that are committed."

Jinx smirked wider. "Cute _and_ a gentleman." She cast a teasing look at Wally as she straightened up, one hand on her hip. "You could _learn_ a thing or two from this guy."

Kid Flash let out an embarrassed laugh as he scratched the back of his head. "I'll…be sure to exchange notes?"

She smiled overly sweetly and gave him a long look as she strode toward the kitchen. "You do that."

A long, uncomfortably silent minute passed before a girly, high-pitched squeal split the air, causing Rev and Wally to jolt in surprise as an orange-violet blur crashed into the common room.

"Friends!" Starfire enveloped KF and Jinx in crushing hugs, her damp hair flying all over and slapping Victor in the face as she streaked around the room. "When did you arrive?"

"Couple minutes ago," Kid Flash gasped as he caught his breath. "Thought that after a hard month's work, you guys deserved a little break. You know, to have some fun."

"Every month is hard, Wally," Robin said as he stepped out of the hallway, putting an arm around Starfire's waist as she touched down next to him. He smirked. "We should all know that by now."

"Eh, whatever. I felt like celebrating, and the other Titans were busy today." He frowned. "We never seem to get enough time off. Gotta grab these opportunities when they roll around."

Robin frowned a little. "Fair enough." He shrugged. "I have no plans for later. What about you guys?"

"Yeah!" came an excited squeal.

The occupants of the room looked up at Beast Boy transformed from a fly into his human form somewhere above Raven, landing on the couch seat next to her. The sorceress' expression shifted in sudden shock as she jumped at his sudden presence, wondering just how long he'd been hovering there.

"I'm open," Cyborg answered a few seconds later, crossing his arms at BB.

"I am also free," Starfire added. "Friend Lucas?"

Rev had buried his face back in his book sometime during the awkward silence earlier, and his face was currently stuck in a concentrated frown as his gray eyes rapidly swept over its pages. "Nada."

Kid Flash appeared next to Raven, grinning down at her. "And you?"

Her violet eyes narrowed dangerously, prompting the speedster to back up a step. "I'm busy."

"With?"

"Meditation. Being doused in biological slime tends to put me in a rotten mood."

"Aww," BB whined, "but Rae—"

"Get a grip, Gar," she reprimanded softly. "You're seventeen. Act like it."

He pouted a bit, fang sticking out, but shut up as he crossed his arms.

A small stab of regret hit her chest, and she frowned. "But—my occupation shouldn't stop all of you from going out for fun."

Gar still looked put-out.

She frowned harder. _Damn it._

"I might join later."

His pointed ears perked up as he looked at her intently.

"I said _might_ ," she emphasized to curb his sudden excitement, holding up a finger.

A smile twitched at his lips. "Like, how good are the chances?"

Her lips pursed. "Good enough to be more than fifty-fifty. I've certainly been covered in slime enough times to process it quickly."

A mild flutter passed through her stomach as she saw the grin blossom on his face. "You're the best, Rae!"

Before she could protest, he hugged her tightly and let go, leaping over the back of the couch to grab something from the kitchen.

"Then it's decided!" KF announced loudly. "So, what first? Club?" Before anyone could answer, he continued at his usual rapid-fire pace. "No, of course not. Too _early_! Park? Mall? Frisbee match?"

"Training?" Robin suggested, instantly getting death glares from all but two people at once, and one of them was his girlfriend. He held up his hands placatingly. "Not training _exactly_. More like a course I set up in case we got bored and needed to blow off steam." He shrugged. "I only configured it to function against us one or two at a time, but with a little tweaking, I'm sure I can get it to work for all of us at once."

The idea hung in the silent air for a few seconds before KF gave his vote. "Mehhh, it's inventive, I'll give you that, but not what I had in mind."

"At least it's not stankball," Raven muttered under her breath.

By the way Gar's left ear and the sides of his lips twitched upward, his enhanced hearing picked it up.

"So…Frisbee? We're agreed?"

Robin sighed, a little crestfallen, and Jinx just looked bored by the whole endeavor, judging by the way she kept picking at her nails. The participating team members gave their consent, and in short order, they were filing toward the exit after suiting up, Rev throwing Raven a sideways frown a moment before he pulled his cowl over his features.

Gar paused by the couch on his way out. "Sure you don't want to come with us? I mean, I know you want to meditate, but it's a _gorgeous_ day out, and what could be more peaceful than an afternoon at the park?"

Raven looked up at him owlishly, surprised—not for the first time in recent memory—at how well he'd thought this through. It was…remarkable (she hesitated to say impressive) how hard he was trying to include her without being inherently irritating. It was—dare she say—endearing. And even the perpetually rainy Raven had to admit, he had a good case. Was it good enough for her to cave?

Her hesitant but distinct nod answered before she had time to overthink it. A wave of her hand was enough to summon a new cloak, its fabric going around her shoulders but the hood staying down. Gar grinned from ear to ear, quickly turning away and busying himself with the others to give Raven some space. They split off into separate modes of travel, Jinx, BB, Raven, and Cyborg filing into the T-Car while Robin took his bike and the two speedsters opted to run. On the way to the park, Robin intently conversed with KF about some topic out of earshot, BB criticized Cyborg's driving, and Raven kept staring out the window into the semi-cloudy horizon, the sun reflecting off the bay causing her to squint, even with the polarized windows.

Luke didn't really stay near any of them, opting instead to run on the water or rooftops, zigzagging across the urban landscape as if he were dodging enemy fire. Raven sighed.

 _At this rate, he's going to be worse than Robin when it comes to training._

The park was mostly empty when they arrived, thanks to it being the middle of a school day, so they were able to set up the game virtually unhindered. The few people that were milling about paid the heroes little attention, seeing as how they were mostly old hands who were used to seeing the Titans in public. Raven, true to her non-involved tendencies, stuck to the sidelines and flipped through a book while seated against a tree and hiding in its shade. As she'd mentally predicted, the peace didn't last long before she spotted a fast-moving object speeding straight for her forehead.

She lifted her right hand to flick it away with magic, but froze halfway up when a silver blur passed by, the incoming Frisbee vanishing with it.

"Watch your shots, will you?"

Raven blinked and turned her head left to see Rev standing there with a scolding frown on his face, the offending disk held in his right hand. He sent her a brief glance, and she sent back a grateful nod. He nodded back briefly and tossed it back into the center of the group, speeding off to face off with KF, who seemed to be on the opposite team from him. Another two minutes in, another interruption came.

"Hey, Rae! Join in!"

She looked up and gave Beast Boy a firm look. "You know I don't—"

"I know, but the teams are uneven, and the opposite side is getting their butt kicked," he jerked a thumb at the three-person team consisting of Cyborg, Jinx, and KF.

Raven looked at them, then at her book, then to BB, and sighed hard before picking herself up and dragging her feet onto the field. The changeling grinned, both fangs showing rather obnoxiously. Raven arched an eyebrow, then widened her eyes as her expression suddenly shifted from irritated to alarmed. He'd just transformed into a gigantic silverback gorilla—and chucked the Frisbee directly at her. Raven ducked just in time to allow KF to snatch the fast-moving projectile from the air and spin, throwing it back with just as much force.

Robin triple-flipped and caught the disk, then sent it back at Cyborg, who used his mechanical flexibility to bend way backwards and snap his entire body forward, arcing the Frisbee's path just out of reach of any opposing teammates, but just within bounds to make it count. A silver blur snatched the disk midair and sped to the very edge of their part of the field, using his accumulated momentum to send it whirling in a crazy arc that everyone missed—except KF. With a cocky grin, he tossed it at Raven, who caught and threw it back with a…somewhat reduced speed.

Beast Boy broke out laughing at how ridiculously slowly it was moving—until Raven got a little angry and "nudged" it with her powers. The plastic disk catapulted toward Gar's chest like a cannonball, and he shifted to a rhino just in time for it to bang against his armored head, sending him skidding through the loose grass just a little. Unfortunately, the Frisbee was not quite so durable, so moments later, all eight heroes were staring at the shattered chunks of hard plastic with varying degrees of surprise and other emotions.

Raven just gaped at the mess, red coating her cheeks like dew on leaves. "I swear, I barely touched it."

Kid Flash just laughed. "Guess you're a little more competitive than we gave you credit for, huh?"

She just blushed harder, drawing her cloak tightly around herself and hiding most of her face.

"Yo, don't sweat it!"

She peeked out to see Gar laughing and moving toward her.

"I'd blow my whole allowance on Frisbees if it meant we got to see that side more."

"No you wouldn't," Raven replied flatly.

He thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "Okay, maybe not, but like half."

The other Titans coughed indiscreetly.

"…maybe a quarter."

"Still not low enough," Robin said, "but we'll let it slide." He glanced around at all of them. "So…since Frisbee's out of the question, how about we test out that course?"

A near-universal groan reverberated throughout the rest of the team.

Kid Flash placed a hand on his chin. "I'm actually wondering…"

"You have enough brain cells to do that?" asked Jinx.

"Ha ha." He turned toward Rev. "How fast _are_ you?"

Cyborg brightened up. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

Wally smirked. "A race." He pointed at Rev. "You—" he thumbed his chest, "—and me. What do you say?"

Luke frowned a little and sighed. "I don't know."

"Come _on_ , it'll be fun. The whole team can cheer us on." He turned to the others. "Am I right?"

"Heck yeah!" BB shouted, pumping his fist in the air. "Yo Cy, we can use like, hovercams to keep track of 'em, right?"

He shrugged. "I'm sure I can think of somethin'."

"What do you say?" Wally asked again.

Raven looked at Rev, seeing hesitance but feeling poorly suppressed excitement rolling off him.

Eventually, he smiled a little. "All right, fine. Let's do it. Where do we start?"

"At the Tower! Where else?"

Rev turned toward the rest of them. "Do we wait for them to get back?"

"Heck no! They can track us with our communicators."

"Right. Shall we?"

The two speedsters took off into the distance, vanishing from sight moments later as the others began filing into their respective vehicles. Raven stopped halfway in the door, looking out into one corner of the sky with a frown and only jolted from the tug in her mind by BB's voice calling her inside.

…

It was a leisurely two-minute run back to Titans Island, where they set up on a line quite literally drawn in the sand.

"So," Luke began, "what are the rules?"

Kid Flash started to stretch. "Simple. Ten laps around the city. No physical contact, no dirty tricks. We want a clean race." He smirked. "I want to find out who's the fastest kid alive."

Rev arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that kind of obvious? I mean, you're the experienced hero here, not me."

Wally's head tilted slightly. "From what I've heard about you from Robin, you're pretty absurdly quick when you want to be. I mean, outrunning a nuclear explosion? I won't say that I necessarily _couldn't_ pull that off, but…I do know I've never been in a position to have to."

Luke frowned and nodded in understanding. He pulled his communicator off his belt and sent an open signal to the others, receiving holographic images of all of them in response. "You guys ready?"

"All set here, man!" Cyborg answered. "Ready when you are."

Rev exchanged a look with KF, giving him a nod, then securing his communicator back to his belt. Both speedsters formed up on the line in runner's stances, coiling up for rapid acceleration.

"On your marks," came Cyborg's voice over their earpieces.

Luke took a deep breath, steeling his nerves.

"Get set."

His gray eyes narrowed, silver lightning dancing over their surfaces.

"Go!"

The two speedsters took off with a rush of sand and, a split-second later, water, kicking up both in their wake as they trailed silver and gold. The Jump City skyline and bay looked beautiful at this time in the day, just approaching sunset with the red hue cast by the setting sun. Briefly distracted by these sights, Lucas started to fall behind, and pushed himself as a result. With a laugh, KF shot him a smile.

"Don't lose your focus, man." He smirked tauntingly. "I'd hate to beat you _this_ early."

Rev smirked back, a surge of competitive fire rising in his gut. "Don't get cocky, Kid Mouth. I'm just getting started."

Rev's use of KF's least favorite nickname caught him just off-guard enough for the younger speedster to pull ahead. As they constantly alternated positions, they could hear the cheers and commentary of their excited teammates. Evidently, Jinx didn't know who she should be cheering for, since every time one of them did something unexpected and pulled ahead, she would go wild. It wasn't long before they'd completed their first lap around Jump City, but that apparently wasn't fast enough for Kid Flash.

"I'm all for being a good sport, but don't you think we can up the ante?"

Lucas shot him a look.

KF smirked. "I mean, we haven't even gone supersonic yet. Is this really your fastest?"

He snorted derisively. "To outrun a nuke? Not even close."

Looking forward again as they approached Titans Island, Luke's eyes narrowed as they flared with lightning. Quite suddenly, two identical sonic booms split the early evening air, and water and sand were kicked up in a massive geyser in the wake of their movements. The excited cheers of the other Titans, who'd arrived back home, followed them out, bringing a small smile to Rev's features. The smirk slowly faded as a frown creased his eyebrows. Raven's words from earlier haunted him, more than he'd have cared to admit.

" _For the last month, you've been going pretty much on overdrive. Like you're still trying to earn your place on the team."_

Luke shook his head slightly. After what he did? After what had almost happened? How could he _not_ feel like he needed to? One month wasn't nearly enough time to forget his sins. Every day, every time he stepped out of the shower, he was shown a reminder of his failure in the mirror, every bit as ugly as the betrayal it represented. His only consolation (and a dark one at that) was that Deathstroke had just as ugly of a reminder, not that he cared. Slade had always preferred to carry a few battle-scars anyway, and this would certainly be one of the more visible—though maybe not, with that mask he was so fond of wearing.

Essentially, Lucas found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wanted to get more comfortable with the Titans, as evidenced by the turntable and other communal activities he'd engaged in, but at the same time…there was still this taste in the air, this discomfort. The way conversations went quiet when he stepped in the room. He shook his head. Maybe it was just him. He didn't think so. Whatever the case, the status quo had him on the team and (relatively) safe. For now, that was good enough.

So distracted was he that he failed to notice Kid Flash pushing his speed, and that he was falling behind. Muttering a curse under his breath, Rev stretched to catch up, pushing his legs and kicking up a massive dust cloud in his wake.

KF glanced back at him and smirked. "Good! For a second there, I was worried you'd reached your limit. I think Jinx would've been disappointed."

Rev snorted derisively. "You say that like I care."

Wally gave him a startled look.

The younger speedster half-scowled and narrowed his eyes in focus. "Not in the mood for chit-chat, Kid. So just shut up and run."

An instant later, the White Revenant took off, pushing himself past Kid Flash as he accelerated to nearly twice his previous speed almost effortlessly.

"Whoa, man, slow down!"

Rev smirked. "And here I thought this was supposed to be a _race_!"

With another lunge and burst of speed, Rev's left boot crashed down with significant force, putting a small crack in the asphalt as he accelerated even further, glass from nearby windows shattering in his wake. His vision began to tunnel as his teeth clenched and a yell that was half effort, half frustration was expelled from his throat. Suddenly, as he was streaking past a mostly abandoned section of the city, a massive blast of crimson energy erupted in the space immediately in front of him. The sheer force of the blast knocked him clear off his feet, thirty feet through the air as he sped up his perception, the world around him slowing to a crawl.

Dust, dirt, and loose chunks of asphalt flew up around him, some of the smaller pieces bouncing off his costumed body as he flew through the air. A deep breath was taken and exhaled as he looked around, eventually turning his head toward the origin of the crimson eruption and tracing the energy back to its source. His head tilted slightly in curiosity until he looked for another half-second, gray eyes widening in simultaneous recognition and alarm. Which was when he looked forward and saw the front of a dilapidated building rushing to pancake him. With a sharp jolt of vibration and adrenaline, he phased through the wall and stayed intangible just long enough to get a clear lane and keep running.

The White Revenant turned down one street after the next, every half-second or so glancing over his shoulder to verify he wasn't being followed. So preoccupied was he that when he finally turned forward, it took him a second to realize there was another figure running next to him. When he did, he took a reflexive swipe at his head, barely dodged in time.

"Whoa, cool down man! It's me!"

Rev blinked twice. "Kid—that—back there—I wasn't trying to—"

"Dude, seriously? You almost got blown up and you're worried about the race?"

He frowned. "It pulled my mind off the seriousness for a second. Kind of important."

Wally snorted a laugh. "I know, _trust_ me. But who the heck _were_ those guys?"

Rev's upper lip twitched. "Not from around here. I recognize them from the Tower's database. They're Gordanian."

KF's eyebrows hiked upward. "Gordanian?"

Luke's jaw tightened. "Alien race. Once upon a time, the bastards imprisoned and experimented on Starfire. _They're_ why she can use starbolts."

"You think they're after her again?"

The younger speedster shrugged. "Could be. If they are, we can't let them get far." Rev kicked his rear leg forward and coasted on the asphalt as he slid to a stop, turning toward the direction they'd just come from. "Think we can stop 'em here?"

KF came to a stop next to him. "Depends on the kind of tech they have, but if we work together? Yeah, maybe. Shouldn't we call in the rest of the team though?"

"They're monitoring us, remember? With any luck, they're already on their way."

"…Then we run for now?"

"No." Rev's eyes narrowed, erupting with silver electricity. "We fight."

Without another word, Lucas took off in the direction of the still-rolling cloud of smoke rising from the impact crater of the Gordanians' weapons. He could hear Kid Flash calling after him, but ignored his shouts and kept running. He heard the Gordanians before he saw them, and when he saw them, for the briefest of moments he reconsidered his direct approach. Only for a moment though. Charging forward, he became suddenly aware of three crimson glows coming from a large, orb-like ship with several cylindrical appendages protruding from its mass. It took only the briefest of moments to realize those appendages were antigravity generators, and thus the White Revenant's primary targets.

Running up a half-collapsed building wall, he leapt off at the last second, wincing when he realized he got the angle completely wrong. The Gordanians' first four shots were completely off, due to how fast he was moving. Their impact points didn't explode quite like the first shot had, something he was grateful for, since the fifth bolt of energy to be thrown his way skated a little too close for comfort. As soon as his feet touched down on the fringe of another building, he took off toward the ground at an angle, curling around two more shots and leaping over a third. He leaned down to snatch up a sharp piece of debris as he hit the ground, launching himself forward and turning back toward the ship as soon as he'd gotten some distance away.

The debris in his hand was launched at the Gordanians at Mach speed, but it shattered against their outer armor with little overall harm done. A small growl came from his throat as he realigned himself, catching a glimpse of red and yellow in his peripheral vision. Rev kept dodging one bolt of energy after the next, looking at the cannons with suspicion when one of them started to glow rather brightly and widening his eyes in alarm when it fired, sending a massive ball of unstable energy barreling toward him. The same explosive force as the first shot slammed into his back when he just managed to dodge their fire.

Stumbling over his first couple of steps, Rev managed to correct his running patterns and run around the ship in an expanding spiral, spotting a red-and-yellow blur flying at the ship from one of the adjacent buildings. Three shots came from the Gordanians, all missing by mere inches as Kid Flash touched down on top of the vessel. Rev smiled and made a small arm-pump as the cannons firing on him suddenly fell silent, the crew apparently preferring to focus on the mischievous speedster currently breaking into their ship. Using their distraction as an opportunity, Luke ran onto an abandoned building whose slanted roof gave him the perfect lane to leap aboard the Gordanian vessel.

One high-speed jump later, Rev could see the beginnings of the havoc left in Kid Flash's wake. He was perched atop the ship for less than a second before a red-and-yellow body flew from a top hatch with a startled shout, landing on one of the stabilizers and curling both arms and legs around it for dear life.

Rev's head snapped toward two massive Gordanians climbing from the hull, then back to the speedster. "Hang on, KF!"

The two reptilian aliens snarled as they started toward him, toting large black staves with the same crimson energy lighting one end. At once, they began to open fire on the Revenant at about twenty feet away, the speedster managing to dodge their fire in place with relative ease, but forcing himself to move when he heard Kid Flash's panicked yells from behind. He, apparently, was also in their line of fire. Gritting his teeth, Luke ran around the two aliens at a massive speed, kicking up dust and debris that blocked their line of fire and made him appear as little more than a white blur. Combine that with the glaringly bright wall of silver lightning, and the Gordanians were basically blinded after only a few seconds.

Neither of them anticipated the sudden and powerful strike that one received to the gut by way of a flying high-speed kick. Rev bounded back off his target with a second kick, back-flipping seamlessly and charging back in with his shoulder down. A dashing leap brought an elbow into the jaw of the other Gordanian, his legs going around its massive head in a lock as his arms became indistinguishable blurs, leveling high-speed strikes on it from every direction. It wasn't long before the alien soldier was keeling over in pain, his comrade reaching over to grab Rev. It wasn't quite in his blind spot, though, so by the time its hand reached his position, he'd already ducked under and sped behind it, a high-speed elbow drop landing on the back of its knee and forcing it to drop with a howl of pain.

It swung its staff back at him, but he ducked the strike and delivered two jabs to the left side of its head. With every attempted counterattack, Rev changed his angle of attack, hitting from every direction and exhausting it little by little. Finally, a strong, hip-driven backhand to the face snapped its head far to the right, his right hand coming in with a powerful haymaker that impacted approximately where its temple would've been. The Gordanian went down like a sack of rotten potatoes. Taking a brief moment to breathe, Rev checked the hatch for any more incoming contacts and snatched up one of the fallen's staves when no one was coming. Speeding over to the edge of the ship, he extended the staff's non-weaponized end to Kid Flash.

"Grab it!" he shouted.

KF slowly shimmied across the cylindrical stabilizer, reaching out and managing to get a decent hold on the pole. As he was standing, though, Rev heard movement from behind and snapped his head to see three more Gordanians climbing from the hatch, one of them in fancier regalia and toting some kind of miniaturized energy sidearm. The captain, he guessed. The alien grinned at them malevolently and raised the weapon in his direction. Unable to move for fear of dropping Kid Flash, White Revenant's mind went on overdrive—and then it occurred to him. He wasn't so unarmed himself.

Grinning right on back, Rev angled the back end of the staff a little differently and punched his left palm into the firing controls near its middle. A brief flare of red came from the back end of the pole before it released a single bolt of blazing crimson energy. The projectile slammed into the startled captain, laying him out on the deck, and for a moment, Rev feared he'd killed it. When the captain started moving a second later, assisted by others of his crew, he realized he had bigger problems to worry about. Finally, KF managed to pull himself back onto the circular top hull of the Gordanian ship, but by then, two more aliens had joined the mix, and they found themselves facing off with five super-strong, very well-armed opponents.

 _Not the greatest odds in such close quarters,_ thought Luke, _especially not for speedsters._

Clenching his jaw, he coiled up and tensed for a mad dash when the Gordanians' weapons flared up.

 _Boom!_

A massive green explosion suddenly erupted in the middle of the Gordanians' position, sending them flying in all directions. In the middle of the resulting smoke, a sudden gust of wind parted the gloom, admitting six very unhappy-looking Titans, who landed between the frazzled speedsters and the enemy.

As expected, Robin spoke first. "Surrender now and no one has to get hurt."

The Gordanian captain's snarl and raise of his sidearm put an instant end to negotiations. Starfire, however, wasn't waiting for them to surrender. Even as Robin had been speaking, she'd been flying toward the enemy, and as a result decked the captain with a single gravity-assisted punch before he could pull off a single shot.

With a small, almost inaudible sigh, Robin called his traditional, "Titans, go!"

Each of the original five Titans took a separate target as Jinx took one good look at the fight, then shrugged and moved toward Kid Flash. Her attitude and expression were totally different from before. Whereas in Titans Tower and the park, she'd been rather caustic and annoyed with Wally, she was tense and genuinely worried about her boyfriend. Luke sighed and leaned against a nearby wall to take a breather while the veterans handled business. A brief glance brought a highly amused chuckle from his throat. These guys never stood a chance. After some extensive reassurance by Wally that he was okay, Jinx turned to Rev and gave him a once-over, her eyes widening rather comically.

Lucas stared back uncomprehendingly. "What?"

Jinx shot him a look. "You look like hell."

He furrowed his brows in confusion, then looked down in mild shock to see his uniform in tatters, blackened in some spots and practically shredded in others. "O…kay then. Ha, didn't even notice."

Jinx arched an eyebrow. "Clearly."

All three sidelined heroes turned toward the Titans, who were stomping the last resistance from the alien invaders so solidly, Luke almost felt sorry for them. Almost. Remembering how upset Kory had been when the topic of her captivity had come up, any sort of pity or remorse where these monsters were concerned was immediately and viciously quashed. Within seconds, it was over. Cyborg restrained the Gordanians while Robin called for a special cleanup crew from the local division of S.T.A.R. Labs and the Titans all lounged around in the aftermath.

Raven insisted on taking a look at Rev, given the state of his uniform, but was rather astonished to find him unharmed. The chances of the damage being limited to only his suit were slim, though, so Luke chalked it up to Speedforce healing over the course of the fight. Eventually, Rev was leaning against a wall, hands folded over his chest and on the verge of falling asleep when he felt a presence at his right and opened his eyes to see Kid Flash giving him a frown.

"What?"

The redhead looked him over, then locked gazes with him. "Are you always this intense?"

Rev gave him a quizzical look.

"Or is it just when Starfire's involved, 'cause if that's the case, then man, you're barkin' up the wrong—"

"Whoa—no." Lucas waved his hands dismissively. "It's not—it's not like that, man. It's…" He sighed hard, looking over at where Starfire was glaring at the Gordanian captain rather viciously while Robin questioned him. "She was the only one," he said in a near-whisper.

"Only one what?"

Luke took a deep breath. "The only one who never saw me as a threat. Maybe it's because she was unconscious during my betrayal, or maybe it's just her overly kind nature, but…she's only ever shown me understanding and compassion. Even now, she smiles at me every time we pass each other, insists that I come out of my shell. She's the only one who never looks at me with fear in her eyes." His jaw tightened briefly. "And knowing that such a beautiful creature, such a beautiful soul, was damaged and tortured by _anyone_ …" His right hand fisted hard. "It's enough to make even the most circumspect want to snap."

Kid Flash looked toward Star and Robin. "So _that's_ why he's using his growly voice."

"Something tells me he's having a much harder time holding back than I am."

"So…all that intensity, that insistence on fighting instead of running…"

Rev snorted. "For one, running away isn't in my nature. And, well…I don't know. I feel like I'm…suspended. You know, when you're just hanging midair and all you can do is wait." His head shook slowly. "It just feels like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Luke…you know they're not gonna do that, right?"

"I know _they're_ not. This isn't about them."

"It's about Slade."

Luke turned to him and smirked a little. "You know, you're a lot more perceptive than people give you credit for."

Wally smirked and crossed his arms. "People do tend to forget that I became Kid Flash by duplicating the circumstances that gave the Flash his powers."

Rev's eyebrows shot skyward. "You'll have to tell me about that sometime."

Movement in the corner of his eye drew Lucas' attention to an approaching Robin and Starfire. In the background, several VTOL hovercraft bearing the logo of S.T.A.R. Labs approached the alien ship and began to let off containment personnel.

"What'd you learn?" asked Cyborg.

Robin frowned. "Captain said he was hired by a black market proxy to capture metahuman specimens, specifically from the Titans, but otherwise nothing on his employer or their purpose. The ship's records might hold more, but alien technology is a bit beyond my hacking abilities."

"Not mine," Cyborg intoned. "Let's take the mainframe back to the tower. I'll take a stab at it when I got the chance."

Robin gave him a nod, then turned to the two speedsters with a look that made Rev feel like a scolded kid. "The Gordanians are a little hesitant to give us answers. How about you two?"

"Wwwwhat do you mean?" Lucas asked.

Robin crossed his arms and arched a masked eyebrow. "What made you think that engaging an entire ship full of alien warlords _alone_ was a good idea?"

The question was directed entirely at Rev.

Internally sighing, Luke opened his mouth to answer when Kid Flash interrupted.

"It was a dare."

Robin turned to him abruptly. "Excuse me?"

Kid Flash shifted nervously as Rev gave him a surprised look. "Our race got interrupted, and, you know, we couldn't just let these guys rampage across Jump City, so…I dared him to KO more of them than me."

The Titans' leader turned his gaze to Rev. "And you agreed to this?"

"…yes," he replied absently, still half in shock at Kid Flash lying for him.

Immediately, both speedsters braced for the inevitable lecture and assignment of more rigorous training. They never expected what happened next.

"So who won?"

The speedsters stared at him incredulously, then at each other, then back to him.

Rev chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "Well…"

…

All told, it took less than fifteen minutes to get the Gordanians restrained and squared away. Ten minutes later, the Titans had returned to the tower and were busy recovering from the brief engagement. Luke was bent over his book, Raven the same, and the others spread out throughout the tower. As he leafed through the pages one every half-second, Raven kept sending him glances. Eventually, he noticed.

Luke slowly closed the book with a sigh. "It's not you."

Raven arched a dark violet eyebrow.

He looked up at her. "It's not you, or Gar, or Robin, or anyone else on the team. The worry that you keep picking up. The way I've been pushing myself. I'm not worried about you. Even _I_ told myself that, but…" he snorted a laugh, "it took Kid Flash to make me realize the truth. You all said that I was forgiven, and I believed you. The truth is, I've been on edge ever since that day not because I was afraid of getting kicked…but because I know my actions have consequences that are yet to come. Yes, I know there's still some tension between me and the others, yes, I know I have to regain your trust, but that doesn't bother me as much as I'd thought it would.

"No…my real concern is—"

"Slade," she interrupted.

Luke's lips pursed as he nodded. "Deathstroke invested years of time and a ton of money in training and preparing me to infiltrate the Titans. He's not just gonna let this go."

Raven frowned. "I know. We all do. But spending every waking moment worrying about it isn't going to help anyone." She sighed and closed her own book, clasping her hands in her lap. "Until a year ago, I lived in the constant fear of the day when I'd turn sixteen, because when that happened, I knew the world would end, and I would be the ultimate cause of its destruction."

"Yet here we are, one year later."

She gave a small, rare smile. "Because my friends refused to give up on me." Raven looked up and locked gazes with him. "You need to understand that you're no different. Whatever happens, whatever the future holds, if Slade or anyone else comes for you…you won't have to face them alone. That's a promise."

Lucas stared at her with slightly parted lips, feeling them twitch upward as his eyes clouded slightly. He blinked a few times to clear them, then gave Raven a small smile and nod. "Thank you."

Raven just nodded and opened her book, returning to her marked page. Luke gave her one last fond look, then did the same as they sat in companionable silence.

"So," a voice interrupted suddenly.

Luke turned to see Kid Flash smirking at him. "So?"

Wally's green eyes turned mischievous. "We never did finish our race."

The Revenant caught Raven's glance in the corner of his eye as he set his book down again and rose to his feet, grinning. "No…we didn't. Kinda trashed my suit though."

"You don't carry around spares?"

Luke shrugged. "Never really needed to."

KF snorted and rolled his eyes. "Well, I do." He pulled a small golden ring from a pouch in his belt and touched a lightning symbol in its center, sending a duplicate Kid Flash uniform flying through the air and into Luke's grip. "Go ahead."

Lucas stared down at the suit with a mixture of shock and disgust. "Ugh…really?"

"It's friction-proof."

Luke arched an eyebrow at him. "But it's so… _yellow_."

Wally stuck out his lower lip and crossed his arms. "What's so wrong with yellow?"

He sighed and shrugged. "Nothing," he mumbled, accidentally touching the red lightning symbol in the center of the chestpiece. Immediately, the yellow and red shifted to all black, save for the symbol, causing Rev's jaw to drop and eyes to widen. "Oooohoho, now _that's_ more like it."

In seconds, the suit was on him—rather snugly, to be honest.

"I _gotta_ get me one of these," he said.

KF grinned. "See me after the race, and I'll make sure I upload the schematics to the tower's computer. Now, you ready?"

Rev smirked as they headed for the stairwell. "Yeah."

"Want to get the others?"

The younger speedster shook his head. "Nope. No cameras. No monitors. Not this time. Just you…and me."

Kid Flash shrugged. "Have it your way."

"Have fun," Raven called absently from the living room.

Rev just smiled.

Seconds later, they were out on the sand of Titans Island, back at the same line as almost an hour earlier. The sun was falling behind the water, but just enough light bled through to illuminate their path. Besides that, the skyline of Jump City was lit up like Christmas, giving them quite the view as they took up their positions.

"On your mark," said Kid Flash.

"Get set," replied White Revenant.

"Go!"

Disturbed sand, dust, and water were the only things left in their wake as gold and silver lightning trailed off into the distant sunset.

* * *

AN: Another chapter done, yay! This one is kind of standalone, given that it doesn't really tie into anything else, so I feel that it's safe to get this out without anything else in the works. I'm working through a really nasty bout of writer's block right now, so it's difficult to make anything flow for the long periods I'm used to working in. Needless to say, I won't be outputting in any story nearly as quickly as I normally do, at least not until I can find some more inspiration, but I've had this chapter in the works for a while, so I thought I'd throw you guys a bone.

Please review at your leisure, and as always, _oya, vode_.

\- CDrake


	8. Janus

"Garfield Logan, watching something other than Saturday morning cartoons. Raven, you're well-versed in matters of magic and myth, right? Isn't this one of the signs of the Apocalypse?"

Raven's lips twitched upward just slightly, eyes never leaving her book as Gar shot Luke a completely flat look.

"Ha ha," Gar deadpanned, turning back to the TV a moment later.

As Lucas listened in, the screen started to draw his attention as well.

 _Breakout…heh, I thought Belle Reve's security was supposed to be impregnable._

"When was this?" the speedster asked curiously.

Gar glanced back at him. "Not even an hour ago."

"Escapees?"

"Only a couple mentioned. Most of the higher risk ones were suppressed pretty quickly. From what I heard, even the Justice League responded to stop the riot."

Luke's eyebrows shot skyward as he sensed Raven's attention shift to them.

"Most?" she asked softly.

They looked at her, Gar speaking up. "Sorry?"

Raven shifted in her seat to face them more fully. "You said _most_ of the higher-risk inmates were contained. Not all. Who got out?"

"From what I heard so far, Icicle, Jr.; a couple members of the Royal Flush Gang…and Janus."

Lucas' eyes widened. "Janus? Are you sure?"

Both Titans turned to face him.

"Yeah," Garfield answered, "why?"

The speedster screwed his eyes shut, focusing hard as a brief snapshot of something flashed through his vision, too fast for even his mind to comprehend. An old familiar headache started to split through the center of his temples, and he let out a small groan before opening his eyes and shaking his head to clear it away.

"Just a feeling."

Raven frowned. "More memory flashes?"

He groaned and shrugged. "I guess. Still don't know from what."

Gar stared at him. "You guys haven't managed to fix his head?"

Raven's eyes rolled. "Retrieving lost memories isn't like replacing a broken game controller, Gar."

"It's more like trying to recover deleted files from a magnetically-wiped hard drive," Rev added. He caught Raven's sideways look. "What? They're _my_ memories, and I've been without them for three years now. You think I didn't try to get them back before now?"

She nodded and turned back to Gar. "Bottom line, it's incredibly delicate work, and not something that can be rushed. It doesn't help that I'm not actually a telepath. If this was psychological or emotional damage, my powers would work better, but since it isn't…"

Beast Boy frowned and nodded slowly. "Gotcha. Well, here's hoping we find a way to break through, you know?"

Rev shrugged. "Honestly, at this point it's mostly a matter of indifference to me. I know who I am, and I know who my friends are."

"But if you have people out there who love you…family, maybe…"

He shrugged again. "If they're out there, they haven't been looking for me. Three years, most of that spent in public—"

"Really? Slade let you out?"

Luke arched an eyebrow at him. "He didn't treat me like a prisoner after I decided to come willingly. In fact, he insisted on getting me out in the open, said it would help win you guys over if I actually knew how to, you know, socialize. So, he enrolled me in local schools, wherever we went, kept track of my progress." He frowned and looked down with a sigh. "There's a reason I saw him as more than an assassin."

The room fell silent for a while, leaving Rev to brood in his thoughts until a smaller, pale hand laid on the back of his closed fist. The speedster looked up and gave Raven a grateful smile.

…

He was trying. Gar really was trying not to scowl.

Over—and over—and over again, Luke and Raven shared these…moments. To most people, holding someone's hand when they're freaked out isn't surprising, even for friends who haven't known each other long. For Raven, though, any kind of physical contact was limited, so for her to willingly share that kind of contact over an extended period was…unusual, to say the least. The only people she shared that kind of physical contact with were Robin, who was their leader and deeply concerned about all of them all the time, and Starfire, who was basically the sister she never had.

Luke, on the other hand, was the guy who'd nearly gotten them all killed—which he had _more_ than made up for by kicking Slade's ass—and lied to their faces for _months_. Granted, with a story like his, no memories, and too much experience with people looking only to abuse or exploit him; it was unsurprising that he'd choose to remain loyal to someone who broke that mold, even when that person was Slade Wilson. Still, with all that, there was only so much Gar could understand. Generally speaking, he knew he wasn't considered the smartest member of the team, and he was man enough to admit it.

All the same, Raven's seeming intimacy with their newest member was, in a word, baffling. And doing all kinds of unpleasant things to Beast Boy's gut. He was more than fine having Rev as a teammate and friend. He just needed to stay that way—for _everyone_. To his surprise, Luke's smile to Raven was proceeded by a firm withdrawal of his hand from her grip, his fingers returning to a laptop set out in front of him and typing at several hundred words a minute as his eyes drifted across the screen just as fast.

His mind distracted by Luke's sudden interest in the laptop, Gar spoke up. "Whatcha workin' on?"

Lucas paused for a brief moment, then resumed typing. "Something Raven told me might help recover some of my memories—a record of everything I can remember that I know is before Blüdhaven. Every snapshot and sliver of half-remembered dreams…after three years, it's still not much of a collection."

"Then why are you typing so much?"

He sighed. "Because she insisted that I write down every detail, no matter how insignificant it seemed." Luke frowned in concentration. "And details are kind of my forte."

BB nodded slowly, sending a glance at Raven, who'd resumed reading at some point. He looked back to the TV a moment later, then turned it off when he saw the news had turned to some local fair.

"I'm gonna be in my room if anyone needs me," Gar declared.

"Got it," Rev replied, while Raven simply gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

Gar paused in the doorway for a moment, looking between them, then shaking his head as he walked out.

…

"You should be illegal."

Kory raised a red eyebrow at her currently unmasked boyfriend, who was openly ogling her from behind. "Excuse me?"

Dick chuckled and came up to her, wrapping his arms around her bare midriff and burying his face in her neck. "I'm just saying. Having a body like yours…it's dangerous. The phrase, 'looks that can kill,' comes to mind."

Kory threw back her head and laughed heartily, turning around in his grasp to loop her arms around his neck. "Dick, you should really know by now—flattery will get you kissed."

He grinned and pulled her closer. "Why do you think I insist on doing it?"

Before she could either respond or kiss him senseless, four loud, resounding knocks sounded on their door—her room this time, which meant…actually, it could be any member of the team. Of the two leading heroes, Starfire was known to be the more approachable, if a little overbearing at times. Giving the suddenly crestfallen Robin a brief peck on the lips, she slapped his mask on his face rather roughly and turned for the door, keying it open a moment later.

The chrome-plated form of their resident cyborg stood on the other end, and his eyes barely flickered to Robin's plainclothes form behind her before focusing on the alien princess. "Hey, Star. Mind if I talk to you for a second? This should be quick."

She smiled and nodded. "Of course."

With that, they stepped into the hallway, striding off into the distance at a leisurely pace.

"So, Victor, what's on your mind?"

Cyborg frowned a little. "So, you know Raven and I have been trying to help retrieve Luke's memories, right?"

She nodded silently.

"We uh, hit a bit of a roadblock recently. I've been usin' this machine to electrically stimulate parts of the brain that belong to long-term memory storage, but every time I turn it on, it shorts out. Worse than that, the electrical flow seems to rebound on itself, and I've burnt out at least five fuses trying to get it to work."

Star's eyebrows furrowed. "You know science isn't my area of expertise, and I know you would not tell me this in a vacuum, so what do you need me for?"

Vic smirked. "I ran a few scans of his head, and for some reason, it looks like there's some kind of localized energy field surrounding the affected areas of his brain, preventing anyone from tampering with it by any technological means. The ringer is, that field is mainly comprised of high-energy ultraviolet radiation. I know your powers run on that stuff, and as such, you can absorb it from virtually any source. I was just wondering—"

"If I would be willing to absorb it from his body," she finished.

He nodded.

Kory thought about it for a moment or two, frowning. "It is possible, certainly, but…I've never absorbed energy from a living host. There's no telling what damage it could do."

"But if it could help—"

She raised a hand to stop him. "I'm not saying I would not be willing to help. I just believe it should be his decision. He must know the full breadth of risks, and only then make a decision."

Cyborg frowned, but nodded firmly. "When should we tell him?"

Kory smiled. "As you would say, 'no time like the present.'"

A minute later found Cyborg and Starfire walking into the common area, where Lucas was bent over a laptop in concentration, his fingers inactive but the rushing of his mind plain to see.

"Lucas," Kory called, grabbing his attention immediately, "may we have a word?"

"You too, Rae," Cyborg added with a nod in the girl's direction.

The two Titans rose from their seats, Luke pushing the laptop shut before walking over to join them.

"What's up?" the speedster asked with a nod in their direction.

Cyborg frowned a little. "We should sit down for this."

…

Luke sat in his seat in the med bay for almost half a minute when they were finished, one hand on his other arm's bicep as that arm's hand absently toyed with his lower lip. Suddenly, he stopped staring off into the distance and turned back to Star and Cyborg.

"So, you're telling me that I have extensive episodic amnesia because there's some kind of disruption field over my memory centers?"

Cyborg shrugged. "Could be. Or that field could be some kind of safeguard to prevent any tampering with your memories. Far as I can tell, other parts of your brain can still access that area no problem."

"It's just external interference that's blocked."

Vic nodded.

Lucas resumed staring at the ground, leaning forward and resting his head on his clasped hands. His lips pursed hard as he thought for a moment or two. "So, this procedure…it obviously involves a bit of risk and unknown."

Kory straightened up in her seat. "It's untested. If I had some way of knowing how it would affect your body, I would be more in favor."

"But you don't."

Her head shook.

Lucas kept staring off into the distance, releasing a long sigh, then turning to Cyborg rather abruptly. "No."

Vic blinked once, then twice. "Are you sure?"

He nodded firmly. "I am."

"Because, dude, we've been at this for over a month and the progress we've gained so far has been…negligible at best."

Luke smiled a little and nodded. "I know. But it doesn't matter." He took a deep breath and stood up. "They're my memories, and I've lived without them for the last three years no problem. I think I can wait a little longer."

He could tell Cyborg wanted to argue, but just stood up and nodded in acceptance. "If that's your decision."

"It is," said Luke firmly. "I'm more concerned about the present than whatever happened in the past." He saw Victor's lips purse hard. "Let it go, man. Really. It's okay."

He sighed hard. "Fine. It's just…if it was me, man…I'd hella want to find out, whatever it took."

Lucas chuckled a little. "I figured, but it's my decision, and maybe that'll change in the future, but right now, I have too much to potentially risk my life on a 'hail Mary.' My answer is no."

Cyborg nodded. "I gotcha, man. Anyway, that was pretty much it. Guess we'll just have to wait."

"Yep. Though I appreciate the offer."

Lucas made for the door, followed out by Raven and Starfire. Cyborg stayed behind to sit behind some machinery and work on something or other, and once outside, Raven peeled off toward her room, leaving Luke and Kory in the hallway. The speedster was standing near her, leaning against a nearby wall with one arm and staring off into the distance.

"Are you all right?"

Luke turned his head to look at Kory's concerned features, her green eyes flickering over his marginally tense form. He managed a small smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She frowned a little. "You're not as sure about your rejection of the procedure as you let on, are you?"

He chuckled. "That obvious, huh?"

Star smiled and sidled up next to him. "Curiosity, though not exclusive in the slightest, is a distinctly human trait. It's only natural to want to know the unknown, especially when it pertains to you."

Lucas shrugged. "Yeah, sure, I guess. But…I don't know. When I first woke up in Blüdhaven, there was nothing I wanted more than to know who I really was, where I came from, you know? But now…now I have you guys, and this city, this tower." He smiled. "I have friends, family, a home, a _purpose_. So, from my point of view, the question now becomes: why? Why would I risk all of that for a past that I haven't needed until now, that I _still_ don't need?"

Kory nodded slowly. "I understand completely." She turned and looked into the common area, where Beast Boy and Robin were bickering over something, a smile twitching at her features. "There's little in life more important than family."

Luke snorted. "If anything," he muttered.

Kory gave him a brief glance, but said nothing and moved into the common area, immediately grabbing Robin's attention and shifting it from Beast Boy. As she always did when entering a room. Rev snorted a laugh and slowly shook his head, turning back toward the hallway to catch something moving in the corner of his eye. Furrowing his brows in curiosity, he strode into the hallway and glanced around, frowning a little when no one was there. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned back toward the common room but stopped short when something caught his eye.

Turning right, he stared intently at a rather impressionistic painting reminiscent of the late Picasso and wondered why he'd never seen it before. A few moments later, he kept moving for the commons, so he wasn't looking when the only vaguely realistic figure in the painting started to move.

…

Raven's eyes slid open as a tug in the back of her head yanked her from meditation rather rudely, violet irises flickering around her room until she looked toward the door. The longer she stared at it, the more a tight, uncomfortable feeling of nagging danger stirred in her gut. If the last few years had taught her anything, it was to never ignore her instincts. As such, she approached the door with slow, silent steps, body tensing in preparation as dark energy engulfed her right hand while the other one reached for the door controls. She hit the "open" key in the same moment as she drew back her armed hand, teeth baring in fury.

The high-pitched, almost girlish shriek that came from the black-and-purple clad form just outside stopped her in her tracks faster than a riot suppression round to the chest. Raven just stared at Beast Boy's balled up form for a second or two before shaking her head and letting the dark energy fall away.

"Beast Boy?"

"Don't kill me," he practically whimpered.

Raven rolled her eyes in mild amusement and reached down, stopping short when he tensed at her touch. She frowned. "Are you okay?"

Slowly, he let one hand fall away from his mostly covered face, peeking up at her with frightened eyes. "Um…you almost blew a hole through my chest."

Raven blinked. "Yeah. It was…it wasn't because of you though." She smirked. " _This_ time."

BB snorted as he regained his footing (and attempted to regain his dignity). "Very funny, Rae."

She looked down either side of the hallway, frowning.

"So, what was it?"

Raven turned back to him. "I don't know."

Gar frowned too. "Something bad, if it made you want to blast the other end of your door."

She blinked. "I'm really not sure, Gar…but my instincts agree with you."

He nodded slowly and looked around, pointed ears twitching slightly. "Should I tell the others?"

Raven shook her head. "No. No reason to worry them over a hunch, not yet anyway."

Gar gave her a firm look. "Raven…"

She held her hands up. "Let's wait until we have something a little more concrete to go on, okay? I don't want to make them paranoid over nothing."

He sighed and nodded. "Okay. Just don't ignore your gut, okay? Sparing all of us a little worry isn't worth you getting hurt over."

Raven felt another tug, but this time in her chest, as she stared at him, lips parted slightly and mind blanked out. It was a few seconds before she realized he was staring back, and she looked away as Gar coughed and did the same. Raven cursed the fact that she wasn't wearing her hood. With her exceedingly pale complexion, any excess heat would turn up like a bonfire in a snowstorm. Thankfully, he seemed to be just as embarrassed, given the fact that he was intently looking everywhere but her.

She waited until the blush had died down some before speaking. "So, uh, did you come to my room for any particular reason?"

Gar turned to her, eyebrows raised, and thought for a moment before biting his lower lip. "I was gonna tell you something, but between almost getting murdered and the reason why, I totally forgot."

Raven gave him a deadpan look. "I did _not_ almost murder you."

His arms crossed. "That's your interpretation, Rae."

Her violet eyes rolled. "Whatever."

"And you still have lame comebacks."

"At least they're not as lame as your jokes."

"You're mean."

"And you're not funny."

Gar smirked. "Tell that to Happy next time you use that mirror of yours."

The glare Raven shot him was nothing short of scalding, and immediately popped his briefly inflated ego.

"And on _that_ note, I should probably get going."

"Yes, I think that would be best."

BB waved at her as he walked away. "See ya, Rae!"

Raven gave him a single parting nod as she stepped back into her room and re-locked the door, letting out a quiet sigh. She stood there in silence, lost in thought for nearly a full minute as she processed their brief conversation.

 _"Should I tell the others?"_

 _"No reason to worry them over a hunch, not yet anyway."_

" _Raven…"_

 _"Let's wait until we have something a little more concrete to go on, okay? I don't want to make them paranoid over nothing."_

 _"Just don't ignore your gut, okay? Sparing all of us a little worry isn't worth you getting hurt over."_

She remembered the look on his face so clearly, the intensity of his voice and eyes. And then there was that awkward staring contest…

Raven turned back to her dresser, where one locked drawer stared back at her. Maybe he was right, and it _was_ time to go back to Nevermore. Her hand hovered over the mirror when that flash of tension tugged at the back of her head again, laced with a trace of something just a little more sinister. Her head turned to look over her shoulder at the door, eyes narrowed. Whatever she was picking up wasn't going away, and right now, only she and Beast Boy were aware of…whatever it was. Raven's right hand pushed the drawer closed. Her mirror would have to wait for now.

…

He'd lied to her. Gar usually felt terrible about lying to any of his friends, but at present, he was far more nervous than ashamed. He remembered _exactly_ why he'd come to her door before she nearly blasted him to bits, but under the circumstances of a potential…whatever she was feeling, it didn't seem like the right time to ask. As he moved into the common room, he struggled to find something to get his mind off the tension that had settled into his bones and caught sight of Rev bent over his laptop again. His brows furrowed as a pang of curiosity struck him.

"Hey, Luke."

He looked up at Gar.

"Last week, when Kid Flash was over? You never did say who won the race."

Rev stared at him for a few seconds before a mischievous grin slowly blossomed over his features and he turned back to the laptop. "And I never will."

"Come on, man. Not even a hint?"

His head shook.

Gar snorted and sidled up to the refrigerator. "You're such a stiff."

"Uh huh," he replied absently, almost completely ignoring Garfield.

Gar looked over his shoulder at Luke's back, mentally replaying the exchange between him and Raven earlier. "So…what's the deal with you and Rae?"

Rev glanced back at him with a quizzical expression. "Sorry? What do you mean?"

He shrugged and seated himself with a massive glass of OJ. "I'm just sayin'. You two seem to have a very…special relationship."

The corner of Lucas' lips twitched upward haphazardly as he evidently restrained a smile. Finally, he let out a small snicker. "Is this about the whole hand-holding thing earlier?"

Gar's eyes widened slightly in panic. _Abort. Abort!_

Luke just laughed and shook his head slowly. " _That_ was her attempt to keep me from dwelling on the past by altering my emotional state. It's easier when she's in physical contact with someone, you know."

He stared at Rev for a moment. "So…you pulling away—"

"Was because I didn't want her messing with my head." Luke shrugged. "She has good intentions, I know, but that doesn't excuse meddling with my emotions without my consent. What she doesn't seem to understand is that my history with Slade isn't something I need to be distracted from, it's something I need to face and resolve, once and for all." He frowned. "I'm just afraid that that can't happen until we next meet."

Gar nodded slowly. "That makes sense."

Rev arched an eyebrow at him.

"Uh, I mean—I'm with you all the way, man." He smiled for effect.

Luke just snorted and rolled his eyes, a grin on his face. "Uh huh. I'm sure that's _exactly_ what you meant."

Gar gave him a complete deadpan look.

He held up his hands in surrender as he closed down the laptop and picked it up. "I'm gonna be outside if you need me."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Was thinking about the course Robin set up for us to blow off some steam. Last week, he said he configured it to fight one of us at a time, and I guess I got a little curious about what he'd programmed to fight me."

Gar nodded slowly. "Gotcha. See you then, man."

Luke smiled and nodded to him, then vanished in a burst of wind and lightning.

…

"Now, where were we?"

Kory grinned and looped her arms around Dick's neck, pulling him close with only the slightest hint of gentleness. "Right here, I believe."

 _Beep!_

Robin was scowling, right on the verge of snapping and throwing his communicator clear across the room and shattering it against the far wall. Kory could always tell when he was flirting with his breaking point. That was _twice_ today that they'd been interrupted, and given the look on Dick's face at present, if the person on the other end of the line wasn't calling about an emergency, they were going to die very slowly and _very_ painfully.

"What?" he half-snarled upon activating his communicator.

"Hey, Rob?" Gar's voice was on the other end.

"What?" Robin repeated in the same tone.

"It's Raven. I can't find her."

"She's probably in her room, or out somewhere getting some much-needed alone time. I can relate," he added bitingly.

"No, Dick—I'm serious."

Robin's blue eyes widened. Beast Boy rarely ever called him by his real name, even knowing it for a little under a year, and _never_ in that tone.

"I checked her room, checked the commons, checked all the usual spots and a few _un_ usual ones. Other than some residual scent, there's no trace of her anywhere in the tower. Tried to call her up on her communicator, but the call didn't go through."

"Then maybe she went out and doesn't want to be bothered. I don't—"

"Dick, I didn't say she wasn't picking up. I said the call didn't even _connect_. She never goes anywhere without her communicator, and _always_ makes sure it's in working order. She's a lot like you in that regard."

Robin exchanged a look with Starfire.

"And there's more. Before, I went to go talk to her and she told me something about some…ominous feeling she was getting. Almost blew a hole through me because I knocked on her door at the wrong time."

Dick frowned. "You think she got some kind of premonition."

"Maybe. I don't know. Bottom line—I'm worried about her, and with that breakout at Belle Reve today…"

"I see your point." Robin pursed his lips for a moment before speaking. "Get in touch with Cyborg; see if he can find anything on our security cams. I'll go to her room and see if there's anything that could clue us in on her whereabouts."

"Okay…okay."

Robin paused. "You all right?"

"Um, yeah. Just gonna breathe easier when we find her. Anything that's enough to unnerve _Raven_ is something we should be worried about."

"Agreed. Robin out."

Dick reached out to the side and pulled his mask back on as he and Starfire immediately became all business. Within less than a minute, Robin had hacked through the locking mechanism on Raven's door and stepped inside to find it in its usual dark, tidy state. Frowning at the lack of anything obvious out of place, he pressed the side of his carbon fiber mask and activated its multispectral analysis mode, two glowing white lenses coming down to cover his eyes. A passive sonar pulse scanned and mapped the entire room every five seconds or so, revealing what his first glance had—that all of Raven's possessions and furniture were untouched and in their places—an eerie picture of order.

He pressed an index to his right ear. "Cyborg, Gar, you there?"

"Readin' you loud and clear, boss."

"Beast Boy, when did you last speak to Raven?"

"Maybe like twenty minutes ago?"

"Vic, forward the relevant data to my gauntlet."

"Comin' your way."

Robin raised his left arm and tapped a few controls on its side, projecting a holographic screen that showed the rapidly rewinding video feed of just outside Raven's door. He scanned over it several times, rewinding and forwarding it repeatedly as something nagged at his subconscious. Starfire gave him a confused look, and noticing, he spoke up just above a whisper.

"There's something about this recording…"

Eyes narrowing, Robin slowed down the video to pass by a factor of four hundred frames per step—which was to say about four thousand frames per second. In the middle of one section, he noticed a spike in the video's quality, like a brief and small but noticeable electric surge. He stepped back to just behind the spike and turned it down to a hundred frames per step. Then fifty. Then twenty. Upon finding the origin of the spike, he tuned to its precise beginning and panned through frame by frame. What he saw was nothing short of horrifying. Some way, somehow, _someone_ had gotten inside the tower, and within the space of about a millisecond, abducted Raven right from her room and moved out of camera.

The confusing part was, she'd exited her room at the same pace as her abductor just moments before he appeared. But how was that even _possible_? Putting that query aside for now, he tracked the direction of Raven's captor and found them again on another feed, still moving by the same impossible time increments. He kept tracking Raven and the black-clad figure to a hallway roughly adjacent to the common room, where the kidnapper strode up to an unusual painting Robin didn't recognize. He held her up in front of him by her collar, and Robin froze the feed to confirm a suspicion—Raven was frozen, but still very much aware, based on the furious look in her eyes.

The instant he resumed the playback, a pale arm shot from _inside_ the painting and grabbed Raven's cloak, pulling her inside.

"Whoa—what the—"

"My question exactly," Robin interrupted with a frown. He clicked his holoprojector off. "We need to find that painting."

Star and Robin ran for the section of the hallway where they'd last seen Raven, sliding to a stop as soon as they found the wall she'd disappeared into.

And no painting.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," Beast Boy said from their left as he and Cyborg came to a stop next to them.

Robin frowned deeply. "Just take a breath and stay calm."

He activated his holoprojector again and began to track the black-masked figure, but he barely got two feeds away before the intruder just vanished. Didn't pop up on any other feeds.

 _Which either means he made an exit somewhere between cameras, or…_

Robin's eyes narrowed as he turned off the gauntlet and looked in the direction of the kidnapper's last location.

… _he's still in the building._

Robin stood silently for a moment or two, then turned to Cyborg. "Vic, have the tower scan for heat signatures. It's a longshot, but Raven and her captors could still be in the building."

Cyborg nodded and held up his arm, powering up a holographic interface of his own and activating the tower's infrared sensors. Tense seconds passed as the tower scanned for heat signatures, Cyborg frowning deeply when the scans revealed no anomalies.

"Well that's a dead end," Robin mumbled, turning back to the evidence he'd already collected and feeling his anxiety and frustration mount as Beast Boy kept pacing.

The green Titan came to an abrupt stop seconds later, nose sniffing the air for a moment before he turned into a bloodhound and did it properly. Robin stopped his review to stare at the younger teen as he started moving down the hallway.

"Star," said Robin, "go with him."

She gave him a nod and flew off to follow Beast Boy, both of them fading from sight in seconds. Looking back to the holographic screen projected from his gauntlet, Robin furrowed his brows as something caught his eye.

Which was when the lights, cameras, feeds, and everything else in the tower went _instantly_ offline.

Both teched-out heroes froze in place, Cyborg trying to pull up his own interface when he saw that Robin's conked out; it failed abruptly. Not only that, but when he tried to activate some of his higher scanner functions and weapons, the only result was an inert humming sound, immediately alerting both of them to the use of an EMP.

Robin's teeth gritted. _Of course. The only way an EMP bomb would work is if it were detonated_ inside _the tower. Whoever's messing with us planned this out._

The notion that it might be Deathstroke briefly flashed through his head before it was denied. It would've taken him more than a month to recover enough and find a way into Titans Tower. After his last break-in (which was, of course, facilitated by Luke), Cyborg and Robin had worked together to seriously step up security, which precluded the possibility of most villains being able to penetrate their defenses undetected. Slade was one of a few who _might_ have been able to pull it off, but considering how Raven had been taken, he might not have needed to bother. If he had a meta or magician who could teleport, taking the team apart would be all too easy.

 _And I_ just _told Star and BB to split off. Perfect._

Robin tapped Cyborg's arm as he moved off in their last direction. "Come on, Vic. We better catch up with the others."

"Right," he replied, unsettled, as he drew his sonic cannon.

They both ran off together, Robin cursing that their tracking system was down. Thankfully, Cyborg's internal GPS was EMP-shielded, thus enabling him to lead them to the searching pair rather easily. Beast Boy and Starfire stopped abruptly at the sound of their footsteps, turning to face them half at the ready. Robin held his hands up in surrender, and his girlfriend's face lit up in visible relief as she gave his hand a brief squeeze.

"Robin, I do not like this."

He frowned. "That makes three of us."

Beast Boy shifted to human form, still crouched down. "Dude, you think I'm _not_ freakin' out here?"

Robin's lips twitched. "Who did you _think_ I was talking about? Either of you two find anything? And what are you tracking, anyway?"

Beast Boy frowned and sniffed the ground again. "Not sure. Smells familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it." Another couple of sniffs. "Whatever it is, for some reason it reminds me of Raven."

"Lead the way then."

A full five minutes passed as they followed BB's bloodhound nose all over the tower, effectively leading them on a wild goose chase as they started to go in circles.

"Okay—stop," Robin ordered. "Gar, what's going on? Your senses are never this inaccurate."

He transformed back to human form, standing up. "No, dude, my senses aren't the problem. The thing keeps popping up, like whatever took Rae is _deliberately_ leading us in circles."

Robin's brows furrowed. "Now why would they—" His eyes widened in alarm as he turned to Cyborg. "Cyborg, get yourself to the armory and lock the doors as best you can. Taking out our power wouldn't disable all our security systems, only put us on lockdown, no one in or out. Whoever broke in would only need to keep us distracted if they needed us occupied while they do something somewhere else."

Victor frowned. "Dude, is there something in there I need to know about?"

Robin raised a calming hand. "Nothing more than usual, but what's already in there is dangerous enough."

Cyborg shrugged. "Fair." With that, he broke off in a run toward the nearest stairwell.

"What about the rest of us?" Kori asked.

Robin frowned, weighing his options. "I hate to do this, but…split up and take a separate section of the tower." He glanced around the remaining three, something finally occurring to him. "Where the heck is Rev?"

…

"Hooah!"

Rev's whoop split the afternoon air as he bowled over another robotic hurdle, smashing through lines upon lines of them in a matter of seconds. It had taken him the better part of ten minutes for him to realize that Robin hadn't designed the course with intense training in mind, but just pure fun. Apparently, the last couple of months had been enough for the Titans' leader to pick up how much he loved dodging and weaving through opponents, tripping them up with each other, and then when they're vulnerable, taking them all out at once. Silver lightning struck back and forth across the course as he kept his tempest of fury up for another thirty seconds before coming to a stop at the controls and putting an end to the simulation. His shoulders heaved a bit as he wiped sweat off his forehead, casting a wistful look toward a certain section of the city.

 _I gotta go visit that shop again…can't believe I didn't ask for her number last time._

Shaking his head slightly, he turned back to the tower and strode over at normal speed, lifting his communicator to the panel and frowning when nothing happened. He chewed his lower lip and tried it again with the same effect. Rolling his eyes, he pushed on the front door, not feeling it budge an inch. Stepping back with a huff, he placed both hands on his hips and looked up to cock his head in confusion.

 _The tower's dark…all across the board. It's_ never _that dark._ Gray eyes narrowing, he moved toward the door and pursed his lips hard. _If this doesn't work, it's gonna hurt like hell._

Slowly, he began to vibrate his hands, extending the vibrational field over more and more of his body, then pushing his way toward the entrance. To his surprise, he stepped right through without issue—which in itself was an issue. Immediately, he sped toward the nearest stairwell and began clearing the place floor by floor. He ran into Beast Boy first.

"Gah!"

"Gar! Gar, hold up, calm down, it's just me."

BB just scowled and pounded the side of his fist against a nearby wall. "This is makin' me super jumpy."

Rev's eyebrows furrowed. "What is?"

"Rae's gone, man. Someone took her through some sort of portal, and I've been picking up traces of her all over the tower, like someone's taunting us."

His gray eyes narrowed as he turned back to stare down the empty hallway. "Do these trails have a pattern?"

BB shrugged. "More or less."

"You think you can point me toward the next point of origin?"

He chewed his cheek a little. "I could give it a shot."

"Okay, next question: how fast do you think this guy's response time is?"

Gar smirked malevolently. "Not nearly fast enough."

Rev grinned. "Good."

…

"You ready?"

Luke crouched down in a runner's stance, taking and releasing a slow breath. "Ready."

"All right, man. Here goes."

Lucas heard a few sharp sniffs pierce the air before Beast Boy was shouting a location at him through his communicator, one of just a few pieces of tech still working. Instantly, he was off and running through the tower, chasing down one location after the next as BB kept calling out approximate sources. Finally, he caught sight of something strange: a painting hanging on a wall, similar to the one he'd seen earlier in the day. Right before reaching it, an all-too-familiar jolt of pain shot through his head and tripped him up just enough to slow him down. He did, however, manage to catch the painting's contents right before it vanished: a jet-black raven caged by a man with a long, distended face.

"Next!" he shouted into his communicator, speeding down the halls faster than Beast Boy can call them out.

Finally, he saw the painting again and used his enhanced perception to remember its precise location. He then shut his eyes tightly in an attempt to avoid any more headaches and waited until the exact moment he should have reached the wall. When that happened, he stuck out his right arm and instantly felt his stomach turn as gravity and space were screwed up seven ways from Sunday. A second or two later, he popped up in another hallway, coming to an abrupt stop as he looked back to see a different painting on the wall behind him right before it disappeared. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to calm himself just as Gar's agitated voice broke through to him.

"I'm fine," he interrupted sharply, "but wherever Rae's stuck, it's some kind of extradimensional space I don't understand." His head shook sharply. "Like walking through a Picasso painting." He froze abruptly. "Wait. Picasso…"

Feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on but managing to keep them at bay, he focused more and more on that name, letting it pass through his mind with a slow breath. And suddenly, a flurry of information ran through his head, instantly prompting him to activate his communicator.

"I know who's behind this!"

The line was silent for a moment before Robin's voice answered him. "What do you mean?"

Rev blinked a few times, a small smile coming to his features. "I don't understand exactly how, but I think I've encountered this threat before. He's a metahuman called Janus, the same one that broke out of Belle Reve Prison earlier today, and he has the ability to create extradimensional portals through three paintings."

"He also have the ability to mess with time?" Cyborg asked. "Because the guy who kidnapped Rae was definitely on some trippy time-bending crap."

His brows furrowed. "Wait, what? No, of course not."

"Then Janus is working with a partner," said Robin. "Given this realization, do you have any idea how we're supposed to get Raven back?"

"I might," Cy answered. "But I'm gonna need Rev's help. Meet me in the lab ASAP."

"See you in a second."

It wasn't _quite_ a second, but close enough.

Cyborg looked up from a workbench as soon as he felt the gust of Rev's wind. "You're here. Good."

Luke looked over the workbench in mild confusion, eyebrows furrowing as Cyborg assembled something into a circular disc that was slightly convex on one side. "What's the big plan?"

"One sec."

Victor used a built-in soldering iron in his arm to put the finishing touches on a cluster of wiring, then assembled the disk into a single piece. He then reached over to what looked like a segmented belt and snapped the disk into a place at its center, where the buckle would've been. A touch to the underside of the disk's mounting disengaged the belt's locking mechanism and opened it, at which point Cyborg turned to Rev and offered it to him. The speedster just stared at him for a moment, then at the belt, Cyborg eventually giving him an affirmative nod. Lucas cautiously took the belt and fastened it around his waist with a click, surprised at just how well it fit him.

"Now," Vic said, "touch the blue control in the buckle."

Luke gave him a look, then reached down and did as he was told, freezing up abruptly and letting his jaw drop in shock as quite suddenly, the top and bottom of the belt opened, and some kind of fibrous substance began pouring from its insides, covering every inch of his body. It eventually encased everywhere except for his eyes and mouth area—the same places exposed by his mask—and after a few startled blinks, he turned toward a nearby mirror to gape in awe. Staring back at him was a disoriented, but fully-suited White Revenant with a new and improved look: slightly darker, and no longer looking like spandex, but some kind of ballistic armor.

"Highly compressible tripolymer weave reinforced with a carbon nanotube matrix. This thing's highly heat-resistant and completely friction-proof, and as you just saw, easily concealable in that belt." Cyborg stepped around in front of him, letting a few scans run over the suit. "It'll serve as much better overall protection than that old crap spandex you used to wear, but I still wouldn't recommend running into a hailstorm of bullets."

"I wasn't counting on it," Luke said absently as he kept staring at the suit. "How long did it take you to put this together?"

"'Bout a month. Ever since you became an official Titan, I knew I couldn't stand to look at that crap suit you were wearing every time we went out."

"Hey!"

"So I spent my free time designing you a new one. One that takes a lot less than a duffel bag to keep hidden."

Luke arched an eyebrow. "The belt's a little big."

Vic shot him a look. "Hey, nobody's perfect, okay? And besides, this is just the prototype."

Lucas nodded slowly, then frowned. "Not that I'm not grateful for the new suit, but how is this supposed to help us save Raven?"

He smirked. "That is thanks to another part of the suit's design. See, I built sensors into the nanotube matrix that'll track your vitals and speed—"

"Stalker," Luke muttered.

"—as well as a few other factors in your environment," he continued, ignoring the outburst. "One such factor is vibrational energy."

Luke's brows furrowed. "Okay?"

"I have a theory about Janus' paintings. If they _are_ extradimensional portals, then it's basically like opening a wormhole every time he makes one or shifts its location. That kind of control takes a lot of power and concentration, so each portal has an inherent instability."

"Okay."

He moved over to a nearby whiteboard and projected a series of highly complex algorithms onto its surface through his cybernetic eye. "Now, each painting should also have a very specific _frequency_. If we can learn those frequencies, we can disrupt them and prevent him from opening or moving the portals."

Lucas shook his head. "But how does that help Raven? If we disrupt all the portals, she'll be stuck there indefinitely."

Cyborg smirked. "I never said we'd be hittin' all of 'em. If you're right, and Janus can only use three at a time, then disrupting just two—"

"Will limit his options," Luke finished, catching on.

"And without anywhere else to send you, once you're inside—"

"He can't force me out. That's _genius_. All I'll have to do then is find Raven and bring her home."

"Doesn't exactly solve the problem of Janus himself, but we'll get there."

"All we gotta do now is find the frequency of the paintings—which I'm guessing has something to do with this suit."

"Got it in one. All you gotta do is touch each painting, and the sensors should be able to zero in on their specific frequencies. Then, you vibrate at that frequency and punch the corresponding painting hard as you can. That should be enough to destabilize the portal."

Luke frowned. "Guess we better get started then."

"Right. I managed to trigger a backup generator once I got to the lab, so some of the tower's sensors are back online. And now that I know to be searchin' for extradimensional energy, I can send you directly to the paintings."

Rev nodded. "All right then. Point me."

The next minute or so was spent with Rev running all across the tower, the paintings vanishing and appearing even faster this time, though whether that was because Janus knew their plan or was just getting nervous was anyone's guess. It was twenty seconds after he'd touched each portal that Vic finally commed him with good news.

"I got the frequencies. There's no way of knowing which one's which, so you'll have to identify them visually."

"Got it," the speedster replied, taking off toward the next location and slowing his perception as he approached the painting.

 _Golden sunset with squiggly lines on the left._ He glanced down at a holographic display emanating from his left forearm. _150 MHz._

The Revenant focused and vibrated his right hand at the appropriate frequency, speeding toward the painting and clenching his hand into a fist. His now armor-plated knuckles smashed into its surface with a satisfying crack, as if he were shattering glass, and he looked up to see the painting's contents altering themselves haphazardly, as if the result of some kind of corrupted code. He repeated the process with one of the two remaining portals with similar effects, though this time he felt a bit of backwash from the destabilization, the force actually managing to push him back a few feet.

He put a finger to his covered ear. "Cyborg, where's the last one?"

"It's—hard to say. The damn thing's jumpin' all over the tower. Now that the other two portals are out of his control, I think Janus can basically dedicate all his energy to that one portal."

Rev's brows furrowed. "Why would he do that, though? Why not emit a portal _outside_ the tower, save himself?"

The line was silent a while, no answer forthcoming.

The speedster's head shook. "Whatever the case, he's not getting away with our Raven. Send the live feed to my suit. I'm gonna need it to predict my point of entry."

"All right. Just be careful. If you're not in all the way by the time that thing vanishes, it'll be like getting cut in half."

"Yeah, I figured." He took and released a sharp breath. "Wish me luck."

Luke took a deep runner's stance, inhaling and exhaling slowly as he sped up his perception and slowed the world around him to a near-standstill. The holographic feed on his gauntlet showed three extradimensional disruptions: two stationary, and one flickering haphazardly across the tower.

 _Just get closer. A little bit closer…_

It jumped once, twice, three times, and finally—

 _There!_

Rev took off like a bolt of lightning, rounding a corner of the tower in the space of a millisecond and plunging into the depths of the last painting in quadruple that time. This time, there was no abrupt shove out another exit, though the longer he was in Picasso-space, the more he felt himself getting pulled back toward his point of entry. He grit his teeth and increased his speed, the scene of a psychedelic field of flowers permeating every fiber of his consciousness as he sped toward a caged bird in the distance. The closer he got, though, the slower he seemed to run, and after a while, his legs started to feel like lead. He was mere feet away from the cage when he stopped altogether, one hand reaching out and just falling short of the bars.

He stretched his arm with a yell of effort and lashed out in desperation. His fingertips just brushed the bars before he felt himself shoved backward. The reversed motion halted abruptly when something grabbed his hand. Gray eyes looked up to see the caged raven staring at him with pearly black eyes, a tendril of dark energy having snaked its way around his arm. Luke's eyes widened.

 _Her soul-self—it's fighting back!_

Gritting his teeth against the strain of resistance, he reached out and grabbed the tendril further up, starting to climb it with significant effort. With one last lunge, his right hand's fingers wrapped around one of the bars and gripped it tightly, using his body weight to tub at the cage. It didn't budge an inch, and he felt frustration rise within until an idea occurred to him.

 _It's risky, but it might just work._

He tapped a key on his forearm's holographic display with his occupied hand's thumb, displaying the precise frequency of the object his right hand was touching. A determined look entered his eyes as he began to vibrate his body at that frequency, increasing the intensity of his vibration as he felt something strange begin to happen to the bars. Gritting his teeth in effort, he stared as the bars—and the entire cage—began to liquefy.

And suddenly, the bar in his grip gave way, and he began flying toward the exit with the dark tendril gripping his waist.

The raven was pulled through the weakened barrier and tugged in behind Rev, the teen pulling it close and wrapping both arms around its body as he shut his eyes tightly. An explosive whir sounded a moment later, and he felt the impact of his body against tiled floor, a light but insistent weight pressing against his chest. Luke opened his eyes to see a mess of violet hair on his chest, a smile flickering across his features as triumph rang in his blood. A sudden, muffled roar snapped his attention elsewhere, and he looked up at the painting on the wall to see a vicious winged creature growing steadily larger in its surface.

Luke's teeth gritted as he gently laid Raven on the floor and stood up, touching his fingers to the painting's frame. A scowl twisted his lips as his right hand began to vibrate and clench into a tight fist. A furious yell came from his throat as he smashed the appendage into the painting's surface, the same muffled roar from earlier reaching him through the portal's fractured surface like a thousand shards of dissonant sound. With a few heavy breaths, he stepped away from the painting and leaned down to brace both hands against his knees. A profound relief coursed through him as he started laughing, his peripheral vision catching the others approaching from opposite sides of the hallway.

Finally, he managed to straighten himself out and face the rest of the team, pulling back his cowl as Beast Boy cautiously helped a disoriented Raven stand. Gar carefully checked her face, the dark girl waving him off with some mild irritation. Eventually, the shifter turned to Rev and gave him a profoundly grateful expression. The smile he returned was no less warm for its teasing qualities.

And then it occurred to him.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

The team faced Rev at the sudden question, Raven giving him a curious look.

Luke pointed at her with an awed look in his eyes. "You're why Janus couldn't teleport out of the tower. You were keeping him here."

Realization blossomed on Cyborg's face. "Of _course_. You blocked his range of entanglement."

Raven slowly nodded. "It was the only spell I could cast before I was pulled through the portal. Once I was on the other side…well, you felt the effects of that place, Luke. Trying to use my powers there was like wading through a sea of honey. I could barely affect the world around me much less reach outside."

Luke nodded slowly, exhaling hard.

"Lucky for us you had such quick thinking," Robin commented. "If he'd escaped with you, there's no telling how long it would've taken to get you back."

"I think there is plenty of thanks to go around," said Kory, placing a hand on Cyborg and Rev's shoulders.

BB nodded slowly, still not relinquishing his gentle hold on Raven's shoulder. Surprisingly, she didn't shrug him off.

"So," Rev began, "what now?"

Robin frowned and approached the fractured portal. "Now we ship some stolen art back to Belle Reve."

…

All told, it was a good day for the Titans, between seeing the looks on the faces of the Leaguers who came to pick up Janus and getting to watch Beast Boy attempt to play nurse to an unwilling Raven. The one thing that continued to nag at Robin's mind was Janus' partner, of whom there had been absolutely no sign before or after the rogue meta's capture. The more he replayed the footage, the more concerned and confused he became. It took a visit from an intently staring Starfire to finally take his mind off it—and return his thoughts to what had been interrupted irritatingly numerous times throughout the day. So preoccupied was he with his girlfriend that he forgot to close down his terminal in the crime lab.

So, when Lucas Carlisle walked in a few minutes later and found it, he woke the computer from its screensaver and immediately frowned at the black-clad figure in the still shot. He hit a key to pan through the images one by one, stopping when he found one just before Raven's abduction. The masked figure was staring directly into the camera, as if in a taunt. Luke frowned at the image as he stared back, a small flash of pain coursing through the back of his head. Gray eyes narrowed, poring over the picture for a few more seconds before closing the terminal down.

He left the lab moments later for a much-needed nap.

* * *

AN: Yay! Another update done. Like I said when I began this story, I don't expect to be consistent with these, so the massive gaps should be expected.

A few things to say on this chapter. First off, Janus is a legitimate character in DC, but there isn't a whole lot of information on his powers, so I basically had to improvise a few details. This whole chapter happened just because I thought the name was cool and figured DC would have a character corresponding to it. Everything that came afterward was just built around the villain of this episode.

As for Janus' partner, he/she is going to be fairly important later on in the story, and if you haven't already guessed, they have something to do with Rev's past.

Apart from that, I can't think of any other remarks, so as usual, I'd like you to review this chapter. It took me several months to complete (obviously), so the time gaps between me working on it might have resulted in some plot holes. Let me know so I can fix them. There's nothing more odious to me than a plot that doesn't make sense.

 _Oya, vode_.

\- CDrake


	9. Plans and Poison

On his last mission, Lucas Carlisle was less than enthused to wake up to a giant green spider carrying him to safety, though nobody really understood why until a day later. Of course, he was quick to forgive the shape-changing arachnid once he realized he'd been knocked out and off the side of a building while several dozen stories above ground. Still, he was quieter than usual on the way back to Titans Tower, and was sure to get there before everyone else. By the time anyone else had arrived back home, he was walking out of the bathroom, noticeably thick black hair damp with the traces of a recent shower.

And—of all things—shirtless.

From the way he instantly went beet-red at seeing how the rest of the team was staring at him, his topless state was an unintentional oversight. He'd vanished immediately, not returning at all for half an hour. In that time, Robin had peeled off to run something through the crime lab with Cyborg's help, Starfire had benignly bullied Raven into a brief cosmetic makeover (to fix a few unsightly scuff-marks resulting from their fight with Adonis), and Beast Boy had been left alone in the kitchen with nothing to do but reheat half-a-day-old tofu burgers and cool down on his own. When Rev did emerge from his room, he was wearing a mildly amused look and staring down at a touchscreen cell phone. He rapidly typed something into its surface as BB bit into his dinner and watched him curiously.

Sensing the changeling's gaze, he glanced at Gar's burger and cocked his head a little. "Huh. You ever tried black bean burgers?"

Gar's left ear twitched. "Huh? Nah, I don't think so."

Luke huffed as he opened the fridge and began unpacking something he'd stored away a week earlier. "Your loss. That stuff has just the right amount of kick and texture to make it palatable for just about anyone."

"Tofu's just fine," he protested. "You're all just carnivorous turds."

Rev snorted a laugh as he placed a large ceramic bowl in their microwave. "Me? I just can't take food that doesn't push back at least a little. Tofu's too gummy for my taste." He stopped short when something occurred to him. "Hey, that might be a possibility."

"What?"

"Black bean burgers for everyone. No animals get harmed to make dinner, and you get to cook something everyone will want to eat for once."

"Hey!"

"I'm serious, man." He gently stirred something in his bowl, then blew a curl of steam off its surface. "This could be a real game-changer for your career in our kitchen."

BB glared at him for a second before mumbling into his food. "Star never complains."

At long last, Rev seated himself at the table with a steaming bowl of something brothy, staring blankly into the distance. They ate together in silence for a while, which unnerved Garfield a bit, but he'd been around Luke enough to recognize when he was in one of his moods—specifically the grim, pensive ones. He couldn't carry a conversation to save his life in cases like that, and as talkative as he was, Gar knew there was a time and place for silence. The still air was broken with the click of booted footsteps minutes later when Robin strode into the common room with a mildly weary look and no cape.

And like that, Gar had his outlet.

He grinned ear-to-ear as he turned his head to face Robin. "Dude, did you see the look on his face?"

Robin arched an eyebrow curiously.

"I can't _believe_ there was ever a time I was actually _afraid_ of that guy."

A smile twitched at his leader's lips. "Glad to see you're not lacking for confidence."

He couldn't tell if Robin was being sarcastic or not…maybe a little of both. "Face it, dude." He closed his eyes and splayed his arms out dramatically. "I'm the man."

A brief silence greeted him before someone else responded. "You dropped your tofu in my pho."

"Eh?" BB opened his eyes and looked left to see Rev holding a chunk of soy protein in a pair of chopsticks and pointing it in his direction. "Oh, uh, heh. Sorry." He reached over and grabbed it, popping it into his mouth and nearly choking when he felt an unexpected kick in his throat. "Whoa—what the—"

A hard smack to his back managed to steady his coughs as Luke laughed.

"Dude—what did you _put_ in there?"

"An overage of pepper, I'm afraid. For some reason I always add too much to my soup. The flavor doesn't seem to distribute fast enough, so I keep thinking I have to put in more." He grinned. "Your tofu went straight to the bottom before I scooped it out."

BB's head shook slowly as his breathing finally stabilized.

"Did you make that?" Robin asked from the sink.

Another laugh from Luke's end. "Heck no. But I know a great place in the city. I go there pretty much every day."

Robin smirked. "So _that's_ what you blow all your savings on."

"Ha, yeah—I can never get enough soup. That and vinyl records." He frowned a little. "That reminds me—could I possibly get an advance on this month?"

Dick arched an eyebrow curiously. "Why?"

Lucas glanced around nervously, tapping his index fingers together. "Well…uh…I'm trying to complete a record collection and I found a really rare one my last time, but…I didn't have enough to get everything."

"And?"

"Well…it _is_ rare, so…I don't really know how long it'll be there."

Robin sighed. "Luke…"

"Okay, fine! It's a girl, okay? I need an excuse to go visit her at work so I don't seem like a creep."

As one, BB and Robin both stared straight at him, shock written all over their faces.

Gar was the first to recover, with a big, stupid grin splitting his face. "Dude…are you _serious_?"

Rev gave him an uncertain look.

"Congrats, man!" he shouted, throwing his arms around the confused speedster in a bro hug. "What's she like? How tall? Hair color? How long have you been going out?"

Luke gave him a mild deadpan glare. "First off, we only met once two weeks ago, so I'm a little hazy on the details; and second, if we were going out, me showing up to see her at work without buying anything wouldn't be considered creepy."

BB's excited mood instantly dropped. "Oh. Right."

Luke smirked and bro-fisted his hand. "Though I'm glad you're so excited."

Beast Boy blushed as a knowing wink was thrown his way, one that did not escape Robin's notice.

"Is there something I should know?"

Gar spotted the evil grin spreading over Luke's features just in time.

"He's got the hots—"

"—gotta get an advance too."

Robin looked between them, eventually fixing BB with a questioning look.

It was Gar's turn to tap his index fingers together. "To…buy…hot sauce."

He surprised himself with both the (what he considered) brilliant cover and the fact that he wasn't even lying. He'd added the last of their tabasco to a batch of tofu dumplings the other day, so he knew full well that they were out. Still, that didn't seem to impress an entirely unconvinced Robin.

"Uh huh," Dick drawled disbelievingly. "Fine. But Gar—you're only getting ten bucks."

"Wha—but dude!"

"Nuh-uh, I know you, man. You'll go to the store for one thing, and something else'll catch your eye. Next thing we know, you're coming come with two armfuls of nothing but chocolate and a whole truckload still on the way. Or worse—a used moped."

The room was pointedly silent for a few seconds before Gar frowned and bowed his head slightly. "Fair point."

"You'll have the funds by tomorrow morning. I'm going to bed."

"Gotcha. See ya tomorrow, Rob."

"Yeah, you too," he replied with a backward wave as he walked off.

"I think I'm gonna turn in too," said Rev as he cleaned off his bowl in a lightning-rimmed blur. "Sleep well, man."

"You too."

Gar sat in silence for a while after he was gone, glancing at the source of a sudden movement in the corner of his eye and frowning when he saw a flash of blue cloak vanish into a room at the far end of the hallway. A pronounced sigh came from his throat as he leaned back into his chair, fingers steepled. For all his unfounded feelings of jealousy, he couldn't help but envy his younger teammate for his sheer confidence. He had _decided_ that he would ask that girl out. A vision of Raven's pale features flashed behind his eyelids on a blink, and with it a familiar pang of anxiety. An exasperated groan came from his throat.

 _Duuuuude…if I'm even gonna have a snowball's chance in hell…_

His hands curled into fists, a decisive glint entering his green eyes as his features sharpened in fierce determination. He went straight to bed, every nerve in his body amped and psyched with the excitement tomorrow would bring.

…

The next morning found Garfield Logan so drag-out tired that he could barely manage to drag himself from bed, much less consider asking out the girl of his dreams.

 _Girl of my dreams? Where did_ that _thought come from? Eh…I'm exhausted…let's go with that._

He gently stirred the contents of his mug with a half-bitten plastic spoon bearing the marks of him accidentally mistaking it for the leftovers of yesterday's tofu waffles. Upon the first hints of espresso passing his lips, his green eyes went _wide_ open and all five senses went supercharged. Evidently, Raven noticed, given the sharp and alarmed look she shot the side of his head. His pointed ears twitched as he picked up on her sudden movement and turned his head toward her in response. His rapid movement startled her a bit, her concerned expression remaining.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he replied far too quickly.

She arched a violet eyebrow. "You _sure_?"

"Mhm."

Furrowing her brows, Raven stood up from where she was sitting and strode over to him, lightly reaching out and checking his forehead, much to his surprise. "When was the last time you were hopped up on this much caffeine?"

He shrugged and made an incoherent noise in reply.

Raven sighed deeply. "Just keep an eye on it, okay? Last thing we need is you keeling over or getting so hyperactive you start shifting uncontrollably."

Beast Boy flushed deeply and nodded gratefully. "Sure. Thanks."

His green eyes were glued to the floor as she walked away, the teen mentally kicking himself. _Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dude, if she sees you like this—_

"I'm goin' out!" shouted Luke to the others as he stepped into one of the elevators.

Gar hadn't even seen him arrive there.

The younger hero sent the commons' tenants a rakish grin. "Wish me luck."

Raven stared at the closed elevator doors for a long while, then turned to a nearby Cyborg. "What was that all about?"

Vic shrugged blankly and Raven stared back at the doors for a while before Gar spoke up.

"He's gone to see a girl."

Both snapped to him in surprise, one's expression shifting to half-concealed curiosity, the other a mixture between shock and mischief.

"A girl?" asked Cyborg. "For real?"

BB smirked. "Apparently, he met her the other week while visiting an old-timey vinyl record shop, right before we went off to fight Plasmus."

"And right after," Raven added, "he came back with a turntable; I remember."

"Yeah well…apparently that one meeting had some sparks, because he's gonna try talkin' to her again." He snickered. "Even went as far as asking Robin for an advance to give him an excuse to visit her at work."

Cyborg chuckled. "Smooth. Real smooth."

"I know." Gar pouted and mock sniffled. "They grow up so fast."

His friend snorted ungracefully. "Like you had anything to do with it."

"A guy can dream," he sighed, unknowingly staring at Raven as he said this.

When he did notice, he was quick to look away, toward the ceiling, walls, floor, fridge. Heck, even Cyborg's disgustingly meat-littered breakfast was better. His exhaustion-stemmed self-loathing increased as his face began to heat to nearly painful proportions, and he eventually settled on staring into his leftovers and reaching for more caffeine. If this was how much of a fool he'd make of himself every time he lost sleep, there was no wonder he always insisted on getting his beauty rest.

…

Raven stared at Gar for a while, sending silencing glares toward a barely-restrained Cyborg, who kept throwing them both annoyingly knowing looks. It had been two weeks since the tower had been broken into, two weeks since she'd been kidnapped and White Revenant had gotten his new suit just in time to save her, two weeks since she'd begun to acknowledge the nature of Garfield's attention. In that time, she'd taken her own (and Beast Boy's) advice and used her mirror to visit Nevermore on a quiet day after declaring to the rest of the team that she would be terminally unavailable for the next couple of hours. No one had protested after seeing the look on her face, though Luke had been somewhat curious as to exactly what it had meant.

She hadn't been around for the explanation, but based on the way Lucas was casting admiring looks at her, Beast Boy, and Cyborg upon her reemergence, he'd been given a full and thorough fill-in. That he probably knew about their last confrontation with Trigon through his pre—and post—betrayal research into their past battles certainly didn't hurt matters either. Given how she'd initially treated her younger teammate, Raven never ceased to be amazed at the understanding they'd seemed to have achieved. Though, honestly, she shouldn't have been surprised. Garfield, Victor, Kory, Dick, her—it didn't matter who it was. Without anything else resembling purpose, Lucas' sole aim in life was to make good use of his speed by protecting and caring for others, and no one was more important than the team of heroes who'd taken him in despite everything.

At any rate, her visit to Nevermore was…calming, if not particularly enlightening. Her Anger was playing nice—well…nic _er_ —without Trigon's influence constantly tugging at her mind (which was probably why she'd found it much easier to handle Beast Boy's antics or getting doused in Plasmus bits), and her other emotions seemed as even-keel as she was, which was pleasantly unsurprising. Individual visits to those emotions turned into an impromptu convention when some of them started to violate the mental boundaries she'd set in place. She blamed it on not being there to sort them out for more than two months. The extent of her mistake was clear when they all started talking so loudly she couldn't even think—which was saying something, considering they were in her head.

A fierce burst of focus managed to rein in her Emoticlones—just barely—and allow her to speak with them regarding her original reason for coming. Needless to say, the opinions she got were as conflicted as she was, Knowledge claiming the need for more time to analyze the situation, while Happy and Passion were practically _shoving_ her toward what they considered not only necessity, but eventuality. Sloth, Rude, and Timid were notably silent. Brave wanted her to go ahead for the sheer hell of it, given that up to that point, she hadn't had the courage to even _attempt_ such a relationship. Raven had pointedly and bitterly reminded her that that wasn't the case, upon which Brave reminded her how badly the emotion had taken a hit after Malchior's betrayal. In a surprising bit of reverse psychology, Brave had almost managed to trick her into making a decision by insisting that the only reason she hadn't gone for it was because she lacked the courage to try.

Attempted manipulations aside, though, Raven had to admit she had a point.

After leaving Nevermore, she'd been stuck in an unending loop of pros and cons, constantly alternating back and forth while the two sides debated. That discussion was apparently fated to continue well into the current morning.

 _"He's an obnoxious grass stain with a horrid sense of humor."_

 _"He could be much worse than occasionally annoying—he could be homicidal."_

 _"If you're gonna put your standards_ that _low, you might as well ask out Red X."_

 _"I don't have low standards; I'm just pointing out the holes in your argument. And eww."_

 _"And what's this 'occasionally' business? He_ always _finds a nerve to hit."_

 _"Ever think maybe that's 'cause I keep retreating? The more I pull back, the more he pushes."_

 _"Because getting a rise out of you is one of his greatest pleasures in life, apparently."_

 _"No…because he knows what happens when I find myself alone, and…he doesn't want that for me. None of them do;_ he _just seems like the only one who doesn't know when to quit."_

 _"Oh right, because last time that reached its peak, we unleashed a rogue sorcerer dragon—"_

 _"And got hurt by him in the process._ That's _his focus."_

 _"Who says?"_

 _"He does, with his actions. My tea, the long looks, the way he_ obsesses _over me whenever I get threatened or injured…it's all there."_

 _"…it'll end in disappointment. Or worse."_

 _"You don't know that."_

 _"Just think about it. You couldn't be more different."_

 _"They do say opposites attract."_

 _"Yeah, but not_ that _much."_

 _"Won't know until I try."_

 _"Suit yourself. Just remember: you've been warned."_

 _"Thanks,_ Mom _."_

With that final internal dismissal, Raven turned her violet eyes to Garfield's pinched features, then cast a sidelong look at a distracted Cyborg, who was blissfully unaware of her inner thoughts. Raven felt a twinge of something akin to excitement when she realized just how clueless Gar was, and perhaps a few others as well. She could already tell; it would be _so_ enjoyable watching the grass stain ineptly flounder in his attempts to get her attention, knowing all the while that her decision had already been made. A small part of herself wanted to just cut through all the procedural garbage and get this over with, but that was also the part that didn't want to go through with this in the first place.

Raven didn't know much about relationships, but she did know that these things had an order to them. Bypassing the order may have been a relief for Raven short-term, but the long-term ramifications and effects of such a decision on both of them could be much, much worse. That, and Raven understood exactly where her reluctant side was coming from. There were only so many flaws you saw when looking at someone as a friend. When they became something more…well, it certainly seemed much less daunting to take on those extra details a little at a time rather than all at once. A deep, calming breath entered her lungs as an element of profound ease seeped into her bones, the small twinge of nerves and reluctance relentlessly shoved down. If Raven was going through with this, it would be on her terms: calm, collected, and smooth as silk.

Man, she couldn't have been more wrong.

…

"Finding everything okay, sir?"

Lucas let out a small sigh. "Yeah, I guess…and would you stop calling me sir? You're makin' me feel old."

The counter girl—who was apparently working the aisles this time—arched a pierced eyebrow at him. "Since when is common courtesy an insult?"

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally answered. "Touché." Taking a moment to slow his surroundings and breathe, he licked his lips and extended his hand upon time resuming its normal course. "I'm Luke, by the way. Well, Lucas actually."

The eyebrow stayed arched, but she still shook his hand and smiled. "Heather."

A smile twitched at his lips. "A pleasure."

"I'm sure," she drawled, sauntering off to another aisle.

Luke chewed his lower lip in annoyance, then turned to the nearest rack of vinyl discs, a jazz recording catching his eye before he reached out to pull it off the shelf. His eyes perused the track list with half his brain while the other half flickered his gaze to the girl's moving form faster than the normal eye could track. If he was being honest with himself, Luke couldn't put his finger on why he was drawn to her. Though her looks certainly didn't count against her, it wasn't appearance. Her job wasn't exactly glamorous, though to a music connoisseur like him, the way she kept this place up and cared for the records certainly had appeal. The truth was…he didn't know.

Maybe it was just…a dare to himself, to see what would happen. See if he could make it. He hated to think that this gi—that Heather was little more than an experiment, but wasn't the whole dating experience an experiment? With that thought mollifying his protesting side for the moment, he pulled the disc from the shelf and tucked it against his side, striding over to the front counter, where Heather was typing on her phone. Lucas gently cleared his throat, catching her attention with a start. A stray thought sent a brief panic through his blood, though he threw on his best winning (and teasing) smile.

"Hot date?" he asked nonchalantly, nodding to the phone.

Heather glanced down at the device, then up at his expectant expression, and flushed a little as she laughed it off. "Ugh, I wish. Parents," she added, waving the phone in the air.

"Mm, gotcha." He laid the disc on the counter, the girl taking and scanning it with care as he thought of something smart to say, _anything_ to say. "So, I'm kind of new in town, right?"

She looked up at him through her eyelashes.

He shrugged a little. "And it's not exactly been an easy transition from where I used to live, so—"

"Sure."

Luke blinked. "What?"

Heather typed a few entries into the store computer, then looked back to him with a smirk. "I get off at eight today."

He stared for a moment, lips flopping open in confusion. "Wh—"

"Oh come on. Really?" She arched that same pierced eyebrow, rolling her eyes in disappointment when he didn't seem to get something. Her hands made finger quotes. "'Sweetheart'?"

Luke flushed. "Oh, uh…" he chuckled nervously, "right." He shrugged. "Awkwardness is something I've only ever been able to overcome with feigned confidence, you know?"

Heather's eyes took on an unknown sheen, her lips twitching slightly. "I do…more than I'd like to admit."

He laughed softly. "Know any good places to hang near here?"

She shrugged, typing in the computer more. "There's this dust bowl called _Terry's_ a few blocks over. Food's for crap, but the music's great."

Lucas chuckled. "I suppose it _would_ take a certain kind of person to value music above food."

Heather leaned her upper body back and made exaggerated motions to her body. "How do you think I maintain this figure?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Eat 'bars,' not chocolate?"

She grinned, lip ring glinting in the counter's light. "Exactly."

His head shook slowly as he smiled and reached for the purchase she was handing him. "So, pick you up at eight?"

Heather smirked. "If you're not too busy." Her look turned stern for a moment. "And no funny business, hear? I may not look it, but I could kick your ass twelve ways from Sunday."

An amused glint entered his steel-gray eyes. _Could you now?_ "I'll have to take your word for it. Not a statement I plan on testing." He smirked. "Besides, you're just showing me around town."

She shot him a look. "Uh huh."

Luke grinned.

Her head shook slowly. "You _guys_ are all the same, subtle as a bull in a china shop—" she snorted ungracefully, "—and dumb as nails."

"Only when I need to be," he replied smoothly. "Too smart and you scare people off. I get the feeling you know a thing or two about that too."

"Oh? Where from?"

He shrugged again. "Call it intuition."

Before either could speak more, "Thunderstruck" went off in Luke's pocket, and the speedster almost frowned at the familiar tune.

"Sorry," he said, "I gotta take this. But hey—eight o'clock, right?"

Heather smirked and nodded.

When Luke waved his goodbye walking out the door, he caught her suppressing a giggle at how he was practically bouncing on his feet. Ah, hell, he didn't care. The grin plastered to his features didn't leave as he picked up his communicator and keyed it on.

"Hello?"

"We need you to suit up ASAP," Robin answered. "There's trouble in the municipal water system—a nearby hydroelectric dam that's in the process of being sabotaged. They hit that, power to a large section of the city could be cut, but more than that, the water fallout will flatten any smaller settlements in its way."

Luke frowned. "Understood. Mind if I drop by the tower to drop off my purchase?"

"No time. We're already on our way with the T-Ship, need you to meet us there."

A low groan came from his throat. "All right, I'm on my way." He turned around and entered the store, approaching the front counter and opening his mouth only to stop short when Heather held out her hand. "Uh…"

"Need me to hold onto it for you, right?"

He chuckled a little and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Thanks."

Heather just smirked and waved him off. She _really_ loved smirking, apparently.

Lucas stepped out into the same alleyway he'd used to change last time, though this time, he had another means of doing so. Glancing around to make sure he was unobserved, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a round, convex disc, attaching it to his belt via an auto-locking clasp on the buckle. His right index pushed a blue control on its surface, and a low hiss came a moment later as the belt's top and bottom opened, a miracle of nanotechnology pouring from its insides as it covered the entirety of his body in mere seconds. Clear lenses slid over his eyes at the touch of a control at his temple, preventing dust and other particles from hitting them but leaving his sight otherwise unobscured.

He sped off into the fading sunlight a moment later, silver lightning trailing his steps as he left the city in seconds. He ran toward the location Robin had forwarded to him, the route there highlighted on the holographic display coming from his left gauntlet. His legs carried him about ten miles outside the city, to a heavily forested area with a wide river running through the middle of it. The dam wasn't difficult to find, and the giant T-Ship parked on its roof was a dead giveaway of the team's point of entry. He followed their path a moment later, speeding through one concrete hall after the next until he caught Cyborg's familiar face. Luke slid to a stop some six feet from him and Starfire, glancing around but not seeing any of the others.

"Where is everyone?"

Cyborg gave him a glance, then turned back to a display on his arm. "Robin had us split up. Whoever's attempting to sabotage the dam also sabotaged its security system, so it's registering unauthorized entries all over the place."

Rev blinked. "Well, why didn't you just say so? I'll have this place searched top to bottom in no time."

"Wait, Rev!"

The speedster shot off before either of them could stop him, clearing one floor of the surprisingly large installation after the next until he ran into Raven and Beast Boy. He slid to a stop a short distance behind them, glancing around when he found them frozen stock-still, staring at something off in the distance. And standing rather absurdly close. Luke grinned mischievously as he tiptoed toward them, leaning his head between their shoulders and speaking rather suddenly.

"What are we looking at?"

Raven stiffened abruptly, more than a bit, but Beast Boy's reaction was nothing less than priceless. He leapt six feet clear into the air, yelping at a pitch that was several octaves above his usual tone and landing in a less than fully dignified stance, on one leg, with his hands over his face and eyes peering out to glare at Rev, who was grinning like an idiot. Before any of them could respond, a sharp, well-defined hiss came from their blind spot, and all three of them snapped toward it at the ready. Luke's eyes narrowed, peering from behind his cowl's lenses at a shadow in the far end of the large, central chamber they were in. Something brushed against his left shoulder from behind, and he smacked it off with a fast swipe of his hand, still focusing on the far wall. When it brushed his shoulder again, he whirled around, irritated.

"Beast B—"

The Revenant's entire body froze in place, stiffening like a board as Gar and Raven turned toward him. They discovered, as he had, the gigantic, two-foot-long spider currently hanging from a web on the ceiling and pawing his shoulder with one of its clawed legs. Slowly but surely, the hissing around the room increased to massive proportions, every pipe, grate, and chute in the room crawling with the motley forms of at least a dozen different types of spiders, all far larger than they should've been. And then all three of them were outside the chamber, at the far end with no spiders, and Rev was practically dancing in place as he shrieked and shook himself off.

"No, no, no, frick no, _NO_! And _hell_ no!"

Gar reached out. "Dude, chill—"

Rev whirled on him, teeth clenched. "Do _not_ tell me to chill, _Garfield_." He pointed through the door at the mass of hundreds of spiders currently advancing on them. "Those are _spiders_. Big, mother-frakking spiders, at least five species of which are _highly_ poisonous."

"I know, man, but seriously, freaking out is just gonna make 'em more dangerous."

Lucas fixed him with a fierce glare, hissing his words through his teeth. "I don't—screw—around—with spiders."

The hissing increased in volume, coming from the opposite end of the hallway they were in, revealing spiders coming to fill both entrances.

Rev began hyperventilating, leaning against a nearby wall hard as his knees started to buckle. "Oh God, oh God…"

Raven just rolled her eyes and muttered her mantra, casting a spell that put a mystic shield around the three of them. "Stay close to me. We'll just push through them. Beast Boy—"

"Way ahead of you," he interrupted, pulling Rev's left arm around his shoulders and acting as a human crutch for the woozy speedster.

They advanced down a great portion of the hall before the spider mob at the far end reached the border of Raven's shield. They stopped in their tracks, pressing up against the shield but coming no closer.

The sorceress looked back at a nearly catatonic Rev. "See? Nothing to worry about."

At least, there wasn't until one of the larger spiders thrust its fangs into the dark barrier and punctured a hole in it.

"You were _saying_?!" Luke yelled.

Raven's teeth gritted as she reinforced the shield, managing to reestablish it just as the spider stuck half its body inside and essentially cutting it in half. Disgust initially lanced through Raven before she took a closer look at the pieces. Her jaw dropped slightly as she saw the dead spider evaporate into nothingness, realization dawning on her.

"They're projections."

Beast Boy turned to Raven. "What?"

"These spiders—" Raven lunged forward, crushing a few of the arachnids and causing them to vaporize as well, "—aren't real. They're projections of magic, little more than materialized aether. That's why they can get through my shield. We're gonna have to do this quickly. Stick close!"

With that, Raven thrust both her hands forward and began to run, her teammates close behind her as dozens of spiders were crushed or thrown aside in their path. Suddenly, their comms. clicked on.

"Titans," said Robin, "I found the source of the break-in—" he grunted, "—converge on my position, soon as you can."

"On our way," Starfire responded.

Raven and the others finally reached the end of the hallway, Beast Boy letting go of Rev and shifting into an oversized scorpion as he swung his tail at the supports of the hallway door. Large chunks of concrete fell and cracked against the floor and spiders, temporarily sealing the entrance. Gar shifted to human form as Raven finally let her barrier fall with a sigh of relief.

"That's not gonna hold long," Luke rasped, pushing himself upright.

"Which is why someone needs to stay behind and keep them occupied," Raven replied, about to open her mouth in Gar's direction when she was interrupted.

"And you've been elected!" Beast Boy added with a grin.

Rev turned to Gar with an expression that was halfway between murderous and panicked. "Are you _kidding_ me? You're gonna lock me in here with all of _them_?"

"Dude, what's the problem? Or didn't you hear Raven?"

Luke stared at him blankly.

BB sidled up to him and gently gripped his shoulder, pressing two fingers together and holding them in front of his face. "They're _projections_ , dude, not real spiders. They're just creepy. Might as well be hard-light or clay."

"So?" asked a pale Rev.

Gar got a little closer and grinned. "No—poison."

Lucas' expression shifted, his eyes lighting up with a familiar fire as realization dawned on him.

"All you have to do is keep 'em busy, but if you can do more, that'd be great." Gar let him go and went to stand by Raven. "Don't worry. We'll take out the source in no time."

Still pale but determined, the White Revenant stood straight with a nod, turning back toward the blocked doorway to see a few of the smaller spiders crawling through the gaps in debris. His right hand curled into a fist as the chunks started to shake, silver lightning dancing in his eyes.

"Good luck," Beast Boy called as he and Raven left via another passage.

…

Raven shot Gar a look. "You _do_ know that's not how magic works, right? By all rights, a lot of those spiders are _going_ to be poisonous."

He smirked. "Yeah, I figured, but Rev's head is back in the game now."

Raven blinked hard, staring at him for a while before turning away to hide a smile threatening to surface.

…

It was official. Gar was doomed.

She didn't respond, instead just taking to the air as he transformed into a cheetah. The tiny smile on her face (the one she probably thought she'd suppressed) was pure light to his eyes, and he meant light in every possible meaning of the word. Light in that it brightened the moment no matter the situation, and light in that it made him feel, well…weightless. Like he could do anything, like everything was going to be all right. And it was, if he had anything to say about it. Before he could become too distracted, they screeched to a halt in the middle of a water junction, catching sight of the others as well. Robin was currently nursing a cut above his forearm, Starfire looking him over worriedly while Cyborg covered them with his cannon.

Cyborg glanced at them. "Where's Rev?"

Beast Boy transformed to his human form. "Dealing with a little…spider problem."

Robin frowned and stood, sealing off the patch on his arm. "We've got one of our own. I managed to spot the spiders' keeper for a second, but before I could move in, one of their pets clawed my arm open. Would've bitten me too if Star hadn't vaporized it."

Kory openly preened.

Raven brought her hand to Robin's arm as her palm lit up blue. "They're projections created by a powerful animancy spell, probably originating from some sort of tome or relic, given the volume of projections."

Robin frowned. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "There aren't many sorcerers capable of maintaining such a complex spell for this long, and none of them are likely to be interested in breaking a dam."

"Klarion might."

She snorted. "For the chaos, maybe, but one dam is hardly enough to get his attention. Otherwise, he'd have done this multiple times already."

"Yeah, I figured. The person I saw didn't look like Klarion either."

"So, we find them, find the source, and destroy it. That should take care of the spiders."

"Won't exactly help with the sorcerer," Beast Boy piped up.

"Cross that bridge when we come to it, BB," said Cyborg. " _Man_ , I hate magic."

Raven shot him a look.

He gave her a properly chastised wave of surrender. "You know what I mean."

Robin turned toward a passage at his back and set his stance. "You all set?"

"Ready," Beast Boy answered, coiling up for a sprint.

The others quickly followed suit, following their leader into the room beyond, which was a large control room with a high-vaulted ceiling and two floors. A single hand-motion from Robin sent the Titans splitting off to cover separate corners of the room, BB staying relatively close to Raven. He turned into a bloodhound when a scent caught his attention, sniffing his way toward the source of something familiar: the metallic tang of depleted Promethium metal, something he recognized quite clearly from Cyborg's cybernetic components.

Except Cyborg was in the opposite direction.

Gar transformed back into human form and frowned. "Rae, something's off."

The hooded girl tensed at his right, her hands starting to glow with dark energy. "Tell me about it."

The telltale hissing of spiders was back full-force, causing Beast Boy to transform into a scorpion again and Raven to start hovering. The spiders themselves were revealed soon enough, the biggest and freakiest ones yet. Gar wasn't a hundred percent sure, but given his extensive knowledge of the animal kingdom, he was fairly certain these weren't based on any naturally occurring species. Raven scowled at his side before speaking in a near-growl.

"Show yourself."

BB shot her a confused look before realizing she wasn't talking to him.

"I can feel your presence."

A slow, mocking clap sounded through the chamber as slowly, a large section of a nearby concrete wall shifted to reveal a slim woman with a mask that covered the upper half of her face and tendrils for hair that looked suspiciously like spider legs. At present, she was sitting astride a horse-sized spider that Garfield recognized immediately: a whitebanded crab spider.

 _Well, that explains the active camo,_ he thought absently, his tail starting to twitch anxiously at the approaching arachnids.

"Well done," the spider woman said finally, voice smooth as silk. "I was beginning to think he'd been exaggerating about your talents."

"He?" Raven asked testily.

And suddenly, Beast Boy's blood went ice-cold as he finally put the pieces together. If he'd been in human form, he had a feeling all the blood in his face would be gone.

 _Promethium…Slade's sword is made of Promethium._

He transformed into human form and his hand immediately went to his communicator. "Guys, Slade is here! Slade is on-site!"

Both Raven and the spider woman snapped to him in surprise, the latter taking their distraction to snap her arms toward them and usher her spider army forward.

…

The White Revenant came to an abrupt stop at Gar's declaration, a chill running up his spine even as the remaining projections began closing in. Pushing aside that matter—and his arachnophobia—he started running around the circular atrium he'd managed to lure the spiders into, constantly alternating from floor to walls to ceiling as the wind currents he produced began to build in strength. One larger spider swung its taloned foreleg at him on one rotation, and Rev snarled as he reached out and tore it off before throwing it into another arachnid like a javelin. He kept running, faster and faster, his speed channeling a veritable tornado that kept increasing in strength the longer he ran. The whole room became a twist of light and dark blurs as the indoor typhoon began tearing the spiders apart.

Sparks began flying from all over the concrete room, something Rev wondered at until he realized—his lightning was causing it. The faster he ran, the more unstable his lightning trail became, until it was actually lashing out at his surroundings. His gray eyes narrowed.

 _I wonder if I could actually use that…_

Snapping his mind back to the present, Rev kept accelerating in a spiral, the combination of violent, fast-moving air currents and electrical discharges steadily tearing the arachnid army to shreds. Eventually, all he could see of them was the liquid ether remains of the projections, a sight that prompted him to finally come to a stop. It took him a few moments before he realized he was breathing heavily, a small laugh bubbling from his throat at his own exertion. It was the sudden realization that it was _way_ too quiet that raised his hackles and caused him to remember he was facing away from a maintenance grate at his back.

 _Bang!_

Too late, he whirled around, collapsing to the ground as he shrieked in agony. His eyes looked down to see a half-inch hole punched through his left calf, arms straining to push him upright until a heavy boot landed on his back and shoved him back down. He restrained the urge to scream as he was rolled face-up by his injured leg, immediately staring up at the imposing, faceless mask of Deathstroke.

"Slade," Rev hissed.

"Lucas," he returned in a nonplussed tone. "I figured I'd find you somewhere in here."

Luke groaned. "And let me guess: the spiders were _your_ idea."

He could hear the smile in Slade's reply. "I never do anything without purpose."

Rev snarled and pushed himself halfway to a seating position. "Then get it over with already. Come on!" He glared up at Slade for what felt like the better part of ten seconds before his former mentor's head cocked.

"I'm sorry, were you under the impression I was here to kill you?"

Luke blinked blankly.

To his surprise and horror, Slade began chuckling. "After all—" he reached up and pulled his mask off, "—I have _you_ to thank for my…unique new perspective."

Slade's face bore a new scar, just the top and bottom edges of it peeking out from beyond a black patch over his right eye. And his lips were turned upward in a smirk.

"On the contrary, you showed me just how much I'd been relying on my senses rather than instincts. Truthfully, I've never felt _better_." He pressed his armored boot into Rev's bullet wound, causing the speedster to restrain a scream. "So _thank you_."

Those were the last words Luke heard before Deathstroke's boot knocked him unconscious.

…

Difficult enough for someone who by nature loved animals, but Gar was _really_ starting to hate spiders. At this point, he'd lost count of how many projections he'd destroyed, which was nothing compared to the crap Raven was dealing with at the moment. Arachas, as this spider girl called herself, had a lot more up her sleeves than toy spiders. That said, she hadn't once left the back of her pet whiteband, which was _way_ faster than anything that size had any business being and had thus far kept her safe from Raven's numerous attacks. From what had been coming over the communicator, Star, Robin, and Cyborg were busy with another section of her army, currently guarding a series of plastic explosives meant to destabilize the dam.

Which left Arachas and her super-sized spiders to BB and Raven, one of which was currently sinking its poisoned fangs into his tail. Speaking of which…

Beast Boy's legs pivoted his scorpion body sharply sideways, the stinger nailing one of the spiders in one of its central eyes, then tearing loose as soon as it melted to nothingness and whacking another one in the body with the flat side. He danced and weaved around three of the largest remaining spiders as they tried to close in, webs and venom following him the whole way. Just one good shift to an elephant and he could squash all of them, but the dam's constricted indoors limited his range of motion severely. Just a couple good bites from the nastier ones and he'd be done. Oh—and he'd almost forgotten one of them bit him already… _great_.

A certain painful kind of numbness started crawling up his hindquarters as he shifted back into human form, his legs numb and unresponsive. His green eyes went wide and he started to panic as the massive spiders approached.

 _I have to finish this_ now _!_

Gritting his teeth against the pain and numbness, he shifted again, this time to a massive Tamaranean animal, and bared his fangs. The spiders, of course, not being real, didn't flinch at the sight. They certainly did when he started tearing into them. The more the poison spread through his body, the more desperate and scared he got, to the point where his actions were guided by pure instinct and almost nothing else, almost like he was steadily going feral…

Gar was snapped out of his red haze when an inhuman shriek sounded from the side, and he realized two things. One, that every spider he'd been fighting had been reduced to formless ether. Two, that Arachas' mount had just been speared through by a lance of dark energy protruding from Raven's right hand, thus the shriek. The masked sorceress fell from the giant spider as it disintegrated into nothingness, a flicker of light passing over her hands before her descent slowed and she gently touched down on the concrete floor feet-first. Beast Boy shifted back to his human form and managed to limp his way halfway to Raven before he fell over face-first, the numbness having crawled up to his midsection. Any higher up, and he'd be flirting with cardiac arrest any second.

The sound of his fall caught Raven's attention immediately, and even with the shadows cast by her hood, he could clearly see the alarm in her face. Apparently, so could Arachas, because she cast Gar a strange, disconcerted look, then turned her attention to Raven.

"Help your friend," she ordered flatly. "I was done here five minutes ago."

Raven gave Gar one last glance before firmly fixing her glare on Arachas. "I'll be seeing you again."

Arachas smirked. "I'll be looking forward to it."

She stepped back toward a nearby concrete wall, its surface rippling with dark, almost black crimson energy and hissing the same way her spiders did as she retreated into it. The portal rippled and roiled for a moment before fading from existence, and the moment it did, Raven was sprinting over to Gar's side and falling to her knees to roll him face-up. Her hands started to glow blue as they approached his ailing body.

"Gar," she said, usual monotone broken and oscillating in a way that was making him rather uncomfortable.

And concerned. If he looked bad enough to cause her to sound like _that_ , it must have been serious.

"Try not to move," Raven continued, a little bit of tingling flaring up wherever her glowing hands went. She frowned deeply. Well, more deeply than usual. "Whatever that witch hopped you up on is nasty, but easily reversible."

Gar let out a small, half-delirious chuckle. "That's a relief." And then his lips kept moving, against his will. "You know, it's kinda cute when you're worried about me."

Raven's eyes barely flickered to his as she snorted ungracefully. "Though apparently not reversible enough to keep _you_ from acting like an idiot."

He mock-pouted a little. "You say that like being weird isn't my default." Gar saw her bite her lower lip a little, restraining a smile, and sighed wistfully. "Man, I wish I could do that all the time."

She glanced at him. "Do what?"

His lips twitched upward as he stared at the ceiling. "Make you smile. Or," he chuckled, "make you have to _restrain_ a smile." Another sigh as his eyelids started to droop. "It's…beautiful."

For almost a full minute, the room was silent save for the humming of Raven's magic. "Gar?"

"Hm? Yeah?" he questioned sleepily.

She exhaled audibly. "Go to sleep."

"Okay."

Beast Boy let his eyes slide closed, never catching how her teeth released her lower lip and allowed a smile, however small, to bloom on her pale gray features.

…

 _Beep._

 _Beep._

 _Beep-beep-beep-beep—_

A sudden and _incredibly_ frustrated scream pierced the otherwise quiet air of the tower's medical bay, causing two of the room's other occupants to jump and the third to shift in his sleep. Lucas Carlisle scowled furiously at the white ceiling, doing so even harder when he looked over at a nearby clock and saw that it was almost eight. His gray eyes alit on a concerned and confused Cyborg and a de-hooded Raven a moment later.

"I really, _really_ hate hospitals."

Cyborg smirked. "Robin wanted to leave you in your room once we fixed you up, but I told him I needed to keep an eye on you a little longer. Though between you and me? I kinda just wanted to see your reaction."

Rev glared.

Cyborg approached him slowly, expression going serious. "Truth be told, though—I really did need to keep an eye on you. The bullet we dug outta your leg contained the same corrosive toxin as Slade's knife in its hollow point. Not enough to kill you, but enough to force your body to stay under to contain the damage."

Luke's lips pursed, and he nodded slowly, inhaling sharply when something occurred to him. "Can I—get a phone or something? I need to make a call."

"Sure," he replied, handing Luke his communicator and sidling off to another section of the room.

As Rev input Heather's number, he saw Raven hovering by the other hospital bed, which was occupied by a rather pale-looking Beast Boy. He frowned in concern. "What happened to _him_?"

She glanced over at him, lips pursed. "Spiders. One of them shot him up with a concentrated dosage of venom."

Luke nodded slowly, freezing when her words registered. "Wait— _venom_? I thought he said those things weren't poisonous!"

Raven gave him a little smirk, casting Gar a look of—was that _pride_? "It got you coherent enough to fight, didn't it?"

He gaped at them both in disbelief. "That sneaky little—"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of Heather picking up.

"Hello?"

"Hey," he replied, "Heather, it's me, Luke. I'm uh…I'm not gonna be able to make it tonight."

"Something _else_ come up?"

"Eh…sort of. More like…something happened. I got in an accident, messed up my leg. I've been ordered to stay off it for the next twelve hours or so." Not technically true, but after everything he'd experienced that afternoon, he _really_ wasn't up for a date.

To his surprise, Heather chuckled on the other end. He got the distinct feeling she was smirking, because apparently that was one of her favorite pastimes. "Hey, no problem. I got called into work anyway. Apparently my boss needed me to work someone else's shift. Slackers."

"Oh. Okay. I-I just don't want you to think I'm bailing on you or anything."

She laughed. "Relax, Carlisle. If you hadn't called me, I'd have called you—which I realize now that I _can't_ because I don't have your number." Another laugh. "At least you let me know _before_ you were late, so you're _already_ doing better than most guys."

Luke couldn't help it; he grinned and fist-pumped, then tried to filter the glee out of his voice. He was only partially successful. "Good to know. So, raincheck?"

"Sure. It should be pretty quiet for most of the day tomorrow. Call me. And feel better."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. You have a good night. And don't work too hard," he added with a smile.

Heather chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind, Lucas. Bye."

"Bye."

Rev hung up and let his arm fall to his side, his grin full and unrestrained now as he stared at the ceiling, his previous annoyance forgotten. His gray eyes drifted to his right, stopping on Raven when he saw her staring at Gar's unconscious form with this _look_. He rolled onto his opposite side and grinned into the distance, sending his green teammate a mental kudos as he felt sleep creeping back up on him. Glancing around for Victor, he smirked slyly and quietly removed his covers, then sped from the medical bay and into his own room before anyone could stop him.

He slept 'til morning without interruption.

* * *

AN: Another chapter done. Yay! Like I've said in the past, _White Revenant_ is kinda like my project between projects, so don't expect frequent updates. That said, this chapter is kind of important to the larger plot in a few aspects. One, of course, being the continued development of the inevitable BB-Rae. The other is this new rogue, Arachas. I wanted to come up with another villain, one specifically tailored to magic, and because I'm an idiotic masochist, I decided to make her focus something that freaks both Lucas—and me—the hell out. Specifically, spiders. Big, poisonous spiders. Thus, Arachas is born.

I always imagined her to have a suit similar to marvel's Hela, at least with the mask, but I'm not a hundred percent sure what the rest should look like. Exoskeletal, to be sure, but I haven't ironed out all the details in my head just yet. She's important, though, and _powerful_ , so don't expect a quick takedown anytime soon. As for her connection to Deathstroke, well…you'll have to wait and see.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed this new chapter and have a great rest of your day.

 _Oya, vode_.

\- CDrake


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